


A Hundred Sunrises: Arc Lights (Part Two of AHS)

by nerdqueenenterprise



Series: A Hundred Sunrises [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternative Universe - War on an Alien Planet, M/M, Slow Burn, android!Paul Stamets, background Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly, mentions of torture and death and injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-08-05 13:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/nerdqueenenterprise
Summary: Hugh and Paul have started off into the great unknown that is Alterra, desperate to scavenge supplies to keep their squadron alive and healthy, but expedition leader Landry might have some ulterior motives as to what she wants to find out there and Paul is still trying to find the Monolith.Meanwhile Michael seems to perk up, which is odd considering the diagnosis Hugh gave her, and only her, Tyler and Hugh and Paul know about what's out there that could be even more dangerous than the Klingons.Each chapter is individually tagged with potential triggers in the notes before it!It's important to have read part one of AHS before reading this ^^





	1. XX.

**Author's Note:**

> wheeee part two is here and it starts of gayer than everything before has been :D
> 
> also, i conveniently explain away plot holes by making the characters themselves say that there's no explanation, go me!
> 
>  
> 
> watch out for the feels, they'll get you :3

Hugh wakes up shaking with cold. Numb, icy, feeling literally as if frozen stiff. He’d curled himself into a ball as much as possible, but without much avail, because the sleeping bag has little give to it.

Who the fuck thought they’d insulated these damn things enough?!

“Why are you awake?” That’s Paul’s voice, somewhere to his right.

Hugh turns instinctively, somehow connecting Paul’s voice to ’warm’ and ’safe’, and there’s nothing he wants more right now.

“What’s wrong?”

Paul’s fingers find skin. Hugh hisses with pain-and-relief.

“Paul!” he chokes out.

“Hugh. I got you.” Paul sounds more worried now, and he cups Hugh’s cheek properly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. ’S just s-so cold.”

Paul doesn’t respond immediately. Hugh resigns himself to soaking up the heat from Paul’s hand and worry about falling asleep again. It doesn’t feel possible, but he’s _tired_.

“I could help you keep warm.”

“God, yes, please,” Hugh says before he can even think about it.

“Alright,” Paul says just as quickly. He connects Hugh’s sleeping bag to the unused one in a few quick, almost practised movements, shucks his boots and jacket, then crawls in with Hugh.

Paul feels like fucking open fire.

Hugh presses close with a whimper, trying to touch Paul with every part of his body to soak up as much of that divine heat as possible. Paul allows that, even slinging his own arms around Hugh and letting Hugh press his face into his chest.

Hugh murmurs something that might just have been a ’thank you’ and dozes right off again, unaware of the shaking breath Paul exhales.

 

 

 

 

The sleeping bag is toasty warm when Hugh wakes up, and really, if it hadn’t been for the hard ground digging into his skin, making him ache, he could’ve assumed he was somewhere else, at home maybe, snuggled into the arms of a lover.

Snuggled. Arms.

_Fuck_.

So, that’s why his world feels so good and so whole. Because this is what it feels like to wake up in Paul’s arms.

Damn, but he has great taste in men. Because Paul is warm and a snuggler and for some reason he smells really nice. Shouldn’t really be possible, seeing how he’s an android and thus doesn’t have sweat or smell glands, but maybe Eun Son went the double extra way when designing him. Kind of makes you wonder what else Paul has that doesn’t exactly come standard with androids.

“Good morning, Hugh.”

Paul’s voice isn’t sleep rough, of course, but his breath against the shell of Hugh’s ear still goes straight to - straight to Hugh’s heart, actually, because maybe Hugh is a bit needy and maybe he really likes being held.

Also, there’s nothing particularly straight about this.

Unless Paul is straight.

Hugh sighs into Paul’s shirt and vows to one day find out whether androids are capable of homosexuality. Preferably with him.

Also the temptation of sliding his hands beneath Paul’s shirt and feel his skin is way too great. If Paul were a friend with benefits, a lover, or even a boyfriend, Hugh wouldn’t hesitate at all, would probably make Paul take off his shirt now and press his face against all the sweet soft skin he knows he’d find, and they’d spend the foreseeable future in bed.

Unfortunately, Paul isn’t any of those things, and they don’t even have a bed, and their foreseeable future involves a very regrettable lack of beds or warmth or nice things, and Hugh should definitely ask Paul’s consent about intimate things instead of just doing them.

“Paul? What’s your opinion on sex?”

Apparently, Hugh is also really fucking stupid when snuggled, because he could _punch_ himself, because who the fuck just springs that kind of stuff on a guy who’s been nice enough to make sure Hugh doesn’t freeze to death during the night.

Before Hugh can so much as formulate an apology and withdraw the question, Paul already replies: “It’s the primary and often exclusive method of reproduction in all species of animals. Why should I have an opinion on something that’s necessary for survival? It’s good, of course, because otherwise everything would die out. Is it… important to you? I know you said you enjoy it, but so does Tilly, and she said she doesn’t care much about it. I think she called it ’being ace’.”

“Yeah, uh, no, I just meant…” Hugh trails off. Fuck, what _did_ he mean? Other than ’hey, Paul, wanna sleep with me?’. “You know, whether you have any interest.”

That sounds just as bad.

“I think I’m physically capable of showing the usual signs of arousal. Is sex something you would require from me?”

_Yes!!_

“No! No, I just, fuck, I just meant, fuck.”

“It would also not help with reproduction, since we’re both physiologically male and neither of us could bear a child; I couldn’t even sire one.”

“Right.” Oh boy, this is awkward. “Sorry, that was weird. Um… thank you for keeping me warm.”

“Of course.”

 

 

 

 

When they step outside the tent, the air is still icy-cold. Hugh automatically tries to draw his jacket closer around him while Paul just stands, completely unaffected. Of course.

“Hugh, I’ve been wondering. The military lets you have a fully equipped gym and makes you bring it along, but they didn’t equip you with clothes or tents that are better suited for these environments, yet the temperatures on Alterra were well known even before the war. That doesn’t make sense.”

“God, don’t I know it.” Hugh shrugs with tight shoulders. “There are a lot of things in this war that aren’t planned well and don’t make sense.”

Their camp is dipped into mist, and they can only barely see the other tents, even though they kept them as close as possible. Hugh selfishly wants to hold Paul’s hand so at least they don’t lose each other.

They have breakfast standing up, because the grass is wet with dew and Hugh doesn’t feel like walking around with wet pants for the rest of the day.

They also seem to be up earlier than the others, and if Hugh weren’t feeling more genuinely rested than he had the previous nights, he’d definitely bring it up with Paul. As it is, he had a pretty good night and is rather willing to be forgiving.

Landry snaps her usual commands, and even though none of the soldiers could’ve had an easy night, they obey quickly. Paul helps Hugh roll up the tent, and this time Paul takes it.

And then they’re off again.

 

 

 

 

The mist doesn’t lift for seemingly ages. They’re already all tethered together, lest they lose one another due to misstepping or just not watching out and then getting lost. Landry seemed to have enjoyed herself while talking about all the terrible things that could happen to them should they not obey their orders. Death, mostly. It had also been pretty clear that she directed most of that at Hugh and Paul, who are really the only civilians here. Well, and Michael too, but she’s enough of a soldier.

The terrain is absolutely awful by now. Even though the forest never changed, the ground rises up into those spires and then falls down into pretty deep pits or valleys, often with surprisingly rough patches of stone; then sometimes they come across large archways grown over with the weird spindly moss Alterra has; and not even the bioluminescent trees can penetrate the mist with their light. They rather add to the difficult visibility. 

More often than not Hugh feels like he’s seeing shapes from the corners of his eyes, sometimes moving along with them, other times silent and lurking. It doesn’t help that the only sounds there are their footsteps and laboured breaths and sometimes also the rustle of leaves in the wind. He’s very glad Paul is right behind him, sometimes steadying him with his hand on Hugh’s arm when Hugh slips on some wet grass.

There’s no talking either, because they’re all far too winded to chat happily. Except for Paul, maybe, but all of Landry’s team have expressed… displeasure when he opens his mouth. Supported by Landry, unfortunately, and she won’t have Hugh expressing his displeasure about that.

The atmosphere itself forbids talking as well. The warmer it gets, the more damp the air gets and the more oppressive it feels, especially since the mist doesn’t clear. Water is rationed, so Hugh reluctantly lets his headache progress, even though water probably wouldn’t have helped either. But maybe, hopefully, it would’ve removed the shadows flitting around the edges of his vision. They’re probably not coming closer.

… right?

Logically, they would hear even an apex predator, because there’s no way to move around the grass that fast without rustling it or the shrubs or the smaller trees… right?

Hugh’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, feeling oddly like rubber.

They need to check out the wrecks, he tries to argue with himself. They need to scavenge what they can, especially medical supplies, because otherwise they’ll all die. They need to press forward. They need to maybe check out the monolith, find out what that was about, what that Warper thing is or does and whether it’s dangerous.

They also need to press forward because it feels like there’s something behind them. Maybe not big, but quick and ruthless and lethal. Like whatever attacked Hugh that one time he almost drowned. If predators like that can exist underwater, they sure as hell have cousins on land, and the air is thick and oppressive like it too wants to surround and encircle them, driving them to whatever doom this hellish planet designed.

It’s difficult to breathe. 

Hugh’s muscles beg for a break like he used to enjoy them do when he works out; his chest heaves and his lungs strain but the air feels like soup, thick and hot and thoroughly deoxygenated. 

He feels faint, maybe.

Lips dry and halfway open, airways already burning with how fast the air passes the sensitive mucous membranes, and every step feels like his knees will buckle sometime soon.

Landry leads on.

He can’t tell whether her soldiers are as fatigued as he is; whether Michael is as fatigued as he is, or Tyler, who’s probably still not entirely recovered from his injuries; but right now it feels like he’s the one weak link in the chain.

He is, really. He’s the only one who has absolutely zero combat training (except for the two years he did jiu-jitsu in high school, that had been fun. He met his first boyfriend there, and it had been a proper little high school romance, and Hugh wouldn’t trade those memories for the world), and unlike Paul, he’s very human and very squish-able and very killable and able to die if faced with a predator. Weak link. Landry said so herself. Lorca argued (ordered, really) that they needed Hugh’s expertise to search the wrecks. That had been that.

Hugh’s feet are very heavy now and the grass seems to have become more slippery. Whatever is behind them, it’s moving faster, pressing in closer, his headache pounding at his temples like it wants to be let in (it already is) and the fog and the air press and press and press down onto him, like they want to depress his lungs, eyes straining to see something in front of him, to know where to put his foot next, to not fall into one more chasm that looks like it goes straight to Alterra’s core.

They stumble out into sunlight.

Bright sunlight. Warm. Hot. But bright. Free.

The man in front of Hugh falls to his knees like all the people before him, choking on this new fresh air while also not getting enough of it, and Hugh is dizzy enough to not even notice how he joins him.

The grass is dry under Hugh’s hands and the world slowly stops spinning. Paul’s hand lands on his shoulder, steadying him gently. Hugh leans against his leg and feels his lungs burn. He closes his eyes, too, feeling his body finally settle down.

The sunlight burns pink-orange through his eyelids, kind of like it wants to cook Hugh in his uniform, but there’s a slight breeze and the air is fresh, so it’s okay.

“Right, everyone, up and at it!” Landry calls out.

Hugh groans as Paul hoists him up, legs refusing to take his weight at first, then steadying by sheer willpower.

They seem to have reached some kind of wide plateau, with a few more spires, but apart from those it’s very flat, the grass here longer and harder but also flatter than in the forest.

“Drink,” Paul says, shoving his flask into Hugh’s hands.

Hugh is way too thirsty to play gentleman, so he does, relishing in the liquid running down his throat, wetting the inside of his mouth.

“Thank you,” he gasps, wiping excess droplets off his lips and chin. Their fingers touch for a fleeting moment as Hugh passes the flask back, and he tries to really convey his gratitude with his eyes. 

Paul gives him a soft smile.

“Alright, let’s unhook the tether. We’ve still got about half a kilometer to walk to the first wreck, and we’ll stop there for the night,” Landry orders.

Hugh starts unhooking the rope from the various places - jacket, belt loops, backpack - that it’s attached to and hands it over the guy in front of him, Stanson, before taking off his pack and stretching for just a moment. Ugh, he’s starting to stink properly now. They all are, of course - no showers anymore, and deodorants are currently very scarce in camp, so they weren’t allowed to take any with them, and with how much they’re sweating every day and how much they’re not changing their clothes, well, no wonder.

Hugh wouldn’t consider himself to be a germaphobe, and sweat isn’t particularly dangerous anyway, and neither is smelling bad, but maintaining a semblance of personal hygiene had been the highlight of the war. He also won’t be able to shave anymore, though at the moment it isn’t that bad yet. Maybe his beard’s natural growth rate slowed to a trickle after years of shaving it religiously every second day.

Landry calls for them to start moving, and with a soft sigh Hugh picks up his backpack again and trudges behind the others. He can’t see the wreck yet, but that probably just means it’s hidden behind (or worst case: up) another mountain. Hopefully they’ll be able to camp in the wreck, so that maybe whatever floor and walls there are will be shielding them from the cold. 

Michael sidles up next to him, giving him a brief grim smile.

“So what did you and Tyler do while you were out here? For the cold I mean.”

She shrugs. “We alternated watches, so whoever was sleeping had two bags. It helps. Also eventually you’re exhausted enough to fall asleep anyway.”

“Right.” That... hadn’t been exactly what Hugh wanted to hear, or talk about. “It’s a shame this planet is so pretty and we don’t even really get to enjoy it.”

At that, Michael really grins and gives him a small nudge. “Oh, you’ll enjoy the wrecks once we get to them.”

“Yeah, scavenging ruins for medical supplies is exactly my idea of a good time. Thank you, Michael.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about work.” She’s still grinning and sets her eyes forward again. She's trying to hide something.

Sneaky.

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.” Still with that grin.

“Alright. Is it chocolate?”

Her head whips around to him, genuine surprise written over her features. “How did you -?! Oh. You guessed.”

“Well, was I right?”

“Damn, I thought Tilly had blabbed. Yes, you’re right. But don’t tell anyone. Lorca doesn’t know, and if I have a say in it, he never will.”

Hugh snickers. “Understandable. It feels mean to deprive someone of chocolate, but...”

“In his case...”

“Yeah.”

They share a conspiratory grin before breaking into giggles.

 

 

 

 

The promise of chocolate makes it a lot easier to walk through the hard, knee high grass that has a rather odd medium red color. And, unfortunately, the ground is rather soft and sandy. But most importantly, it’s plain. No more climbing.

So they trudge along, each caught somewhere in their own mind. Unsurprisingly, Hugh’s thoughts end up with Paul. Maybe while they’re still out here in the open they should run away from camp and build their own life here, hiding in the forests. Coming to think of it, Paul would probably like that. Heh.

 

 

 

 

The light is waning by the time they catch the first glimpse of wreckage. Hugh actually stumbles over some jarred metal embedded in the ground, and that’s what makes him lift his head. His first thought is resignation at the thought of having to climb the big sheer wall that seems to be just a little bit in front of them, but then he thinks again and yep, that had to be the wreck. Of course he’d trust Alterra to have straight tritanium cliffs sticking up at a 90 degree angle, but not with yellow and blue paint. That’s a human thing.

So, yeah, the wreck is big, sticking out of the otherwise pretty landscape like a huge eyesore, with jagged, twisted edges that have stabilizing beams sticking out of them like curly fries.

Ooh. Curly fries. 

Hugh’s mouth fills with saliva shockingly quickly and his stupid stomach gives a hopeful growl. 

But no, there’s just a wreck, no fast food chain. 

Also, considering the wreck must’ve been here for years, maybe even decades, it’s still looking surprisingly good. Sure, scorch marks and the beginnings of rust, but there seem to be no plants thirsting to overgrow this place. Makes sense, of course - there’s nothing but that hard red grass here.

Landry sidled up next to him while Hugh was still eyeing the wreck.

“I want you and your android and whoever else you need to look through this thing right now, scavenge what you can. We’ve got drones for the first two wrecks, so we can already send some things back. I want to use the cover of the night to send them off.”

“Alright. Uh, commander... this thing isn’t in danger of collapsing, right?”

She gives him a look. “This is triple tempered space-worthy tritanium.”

“Yes, and it crashed and burned and has been here for what, ten years? I’d prefer not to be buried when it decides to give out.”

“Just watch where you step,” she says and speeds up her steps to get into the front again.

Hugh sighs softly to himself and looks around for Paul, then makes his way over to him.

“Hey,” Hugh greets him softly, stomach getting very warm when Paul looks up with a sweet curl of his lips. “Um, Landry wants us to check through the wreck already today, so I guess, um, we’ll do that pretty much immediately. There are two good news though.”

“Oh?”

God, Hugh’s heart is doing an excellent job of stuttering whenever Paul looks at him.

“Uh,” He needs a second to collect his thoughts again. “Well, we, um, we’d be on our own.” Great one, Hugh. “And there will be chocolate!” Great save.

“You know I’ve never had chocolate. For all I know, it could be disgusting.”

“It might also be delicious. Only one way to find out!”

 

 

 

 

They set up camp exactly between the wreck and one of the odd formations of rock that are sticking out of the ground like… well…

“They kind of look like butt plugs, don’t they?” Michael is next to him again, frowning and casting him a glance. 

Hugh sputters. “I - I mean I _guess_?!”

She smiles at him. “Go do some important wreck exploring. Maybe you can find a little corner for yourselves, huh?”

He chooses a strategic retreat instead of answering. At least Michael is in a good mood. He should be happy about that.

Paul awaits him at the one entrance to the wreck, empty backpack slung over his shoulder, a second one in his hand and a massive flashlight in the other one. His eyes are fixed on Hugh as he approaches, and Hugh can feel himself flushing.

It’s also more than just a little invigorating. He might be pretty much dead on his feet, with aches in places he didn’t know could ache and his feet feeling the flattest and most hurting they’ve ever been, but his heart still starts beating faster just because he’s approaching Paul. And because Paul is smiling his tiny, cute little smile that Hugh loves so much.

“Hi,” he says, handing Hugh the flashlight.

Their fingers brush and Hugh is sixteen with his first crush, butterflies in his stomach and feeling like his cheeks are going to split from how much he’s smiling at Paul.

“Thank you,” he manages, exhaling shakily and dropping his eyes.

Paul’s fingers are still on the flashlight’s grip. As are Hugh’s. And his heart is going to explode in his chest. 

A quick brush of Paul’s thumb over his knuckles and then Hugh takes the whole weight of the flashlight. His knees are weak enough that he can barely hold it, but he manages to give Paul another shaky, blindingly happy smile.

“Shall we?”

“After you,” Paul replies.

Hugh switches the flashlight on and shines it through the gaping hole into the space between hulls. There’s a twisted mess of what probably used to be support rods between the tritanium beams, each about as thick as Hugh’s wrist, and, further apart, the tritanium beams themselves, about the size of Hugh’s torso. 

Well, at least if one of these go down it’ll be quick and relatively painless.

He steps inside.

“Mind your head,” Paul calls.

Hugh holds on to one of the support rods and wedges his feet somewhere on the bit of ground available between debris, looking around. “We need to find a way into the actual corridors. There should be double maintenance hatches somewhere, that’s usually the standard.”

“I also brought a laser cutter,” Paul offers. “Though… well, welding through walls this thick would take a while.”

“It’s probably impossible, actually. If they built this to industrial standards - which they must’ve, otherwise you’re not allowed to launch - then a laser cutter won’t help us at all in cutting through the hull. The battery would drain way too quickly.”

“What if there are no maintenance hatches then?”

Hugh keeps shining his beam of light around. “That’s a standard as well. And from what I know… no captain who wants to stay alive would go into space without those.”

“Why?”

“Oh! Up there, you see it?” Hugh’s beam has caught something indeed, and whether it’s a manmade hatch that simply broke open, or a hole due to micro fissures in the secondary hull that ripped upon impact - it is a way in. 

“Um… oh, yes, I do! So what now?”

Hugh turns enough to catch the eery blue glow of Paul’s eyes lit up so he can see. “We find our way over there, and then we see whether we can scale the wall.”

“… naturally.”

As long as he keeps checking for jagged edges of support rods he should be fine, Hugh figures, and starts squeezing his way through the bars in the general direction of where he saw that hole.

It’s… difficult. Seriously a squeeze. Damn, maybe they should’ve sent a lankier doctor.

“I can’t help but notice that your physique makes it harder for you,” Paul notes when it’s quite obvious that Hugh’s butt is stuck. Which, yeah, also hurts his still sore buttcheek a little. And his pride. “Let me.”

A hand slips between the small of Hugh’s back and the support rod, there’s a short moment where nothing happens, and then suddenly the metal creaks and bends and Hugh’s butt is free.

He turns around in astonishment. “Did you just bend metal?”

Paul is offset against the orange light of the setting sun shining through the hole they came through, and his eyes are still glowing blue. His silhouette shrugs. “Hugh, I _am_ an android. Synthetic. Stronger than any human. No real pain receptors. Any of that ring a bell?”

“Right, of course. Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Paul says softly, keeping his eyes on Hugh until he’s turned around again.

Wow, Hugh’s heart needs to calm down a whole lot.

 

 

 

 

They make their way over to the maintenance hatch, and luckily there is actually a criss-cross of ladders against the secondary hull, and they can make their way to the hatch easily enough. It _is_ a hatch, and it is also open, so they can hop through and stand in a corridor.

Or the side wall of a corridor, at least. 

Hugh shines his flashlight down the corridor. “I didn’t think about how this might get hard if this thing is standing on its side. I don’t think you’ve got any cool android powers to help us scale walls?”

Paul shrugs. “I’ve got rope. You’ll be fine.”

“Right.” Hugh thinks momentarily of the chocolate hidden somewhere in this wreck, and that he won’t get to eat it if he dies. Then he sets off down the corridor.

 

 

 

 

It’s dull work, because they basically have to check every room, and then everything _in_ that room. Most of them are living quarters, so they collect a few first aid kits along the way, but neither actual medical supplies nor any chocolate (which should also count as medical supplies).

It's odd encountering the few personal items though. Personalized pillows and throws, pictures, books, clothes, all that stuff. Things people clearly put thought into and that they enjoyed having around. And now they're gone.

"What do you think happened to all these people?" Paul asks, quietly, while Hugh is welding open another door. The atmosphere has turned a bit eerie the further they made their way into the wreck, especially since the only light comes from Hugh's flashlight. There are surprisingly no spiders or webs, just a bit of overall dust. Other than that, the ship almost feels like it's able to fly.

"Dead, maybe? Or they left on another ship. Or maybe they're still serving in the army here. I wouldn't know, I'm not the expert on all that Sunbeam stuff." Hugh winks at Paul, careful to keep his tone light.

The door opens into yet another room with pictures, partially fallen off the walls and shattered, some holopic discs scattered over the floor, power long since run out.

"That's sad. All these unlived, unfinished lives. All the people they left behind."

"I guess."

Paul picks up one of the pictures and looks at it. "Whoever lived here had kids. Do you think they're still alive? And maybe missing a parent?"

Hugh looks over at Paul, feeling a pang himself. "Probably, yes."

"Imagine that. There's someone you love so much, and then they leave one day, and... maybe they send you messages still, for a while, and then one day you never hear from them again, and you never know what happened to them. What made them leave you. And... maybe all these people are just waiting, hoping for another sign of life; maybe something to remember their loved one. That must be tough, losing someone like that."

"Maybe the people on this ship came back to Earth," Hugh tries, but he knows the truth too. 

At least they haven't found any bodies yet, and the rooms look like they were vacated normally, not in a haste. Like their inhabitants just left one day and decided not to come back.

Paul picks through the other pictures, but Hugh gets back to work. The faster he works through these rooms, the closer he is to chocolate, and he is very interested in that.

The search has become routine now - check the drawers under the bed, the bedside table, closet, drawers at the desk, any bigger pieces of luggage, if they exist, then the bathrooms' small storage units. Whoever was on this ship must've had a relatively comfortable voyage though, because there are always two single bedrooms attached to one living / working room and bathroom. 

Well, that probably makes sense. You have to keep morale up somehow when you can't put your people into cryo.

God, as unpleasant as that whole ordeal has been, Hugh is very glad he didn't have to spend six months on a spaceship just waiting for arrival. Intercontinental flights to his one aunt who lives in Egypt were already bad enough, and those are only something like 16 hours.

He's almost done with the desk drawers (empty, all of them), when he suddenly has to pull properly on the lowest one. It's a bit jammed, even, like something is sticking up against the upper lip of the shelf, stopping Hugh from pulling the drawer out. He pulls harder, and then the drawer comes free and reveals -

"Cadbury's!" Hugh breathes. His mouth is watering immediately, and he sends a silent prayer of thanks to whoever lived here and left them a whole stack of the best chocolate ever made.

"What did you say?" Paul puts down the picture with a crunch of glass and comes over to him, as close as he can. Hugh is already perched a bit awkwardly, hanging on to the legs of the desk that are luckily fastened to the floor that's now the wall.

"Paul." Ew, there's actual drool leaking from his mouth. "I think we've found the jackpot."

"What is it?"

"Promise me you'll catch these babies and treat them with more care than you would treat a newborn?" Hugh glances down at him.

"Uh... sure? Hugh, I'm not sure what you're talking about?"

Hugh takes the bars out. Four, six, eight - ten?! Ten whole bars of chocolate?! Oh, for real, bless whoever brought this much chocolate with them!

"There you go. Be careful, now, because this is the closest to happiness I'll come while on this planet, and as long as you promise to not eat all of it, I'll absolutely share with you."

 

 

 

 

The rest of the search is way easier now that Hugh knows there are about two kilograms of wonderful chocolate sitting snug and happy in Paul's rucksack.

And they do in fact find some more supplies, including an entire small storage room of meds that are only a few years past their durability dates and all other paraphernalia you could need.

"Oh!" Paul exclaims softly. "Look - Hugh! This is citalopram! That's what you take, right?"

Hugh catches the box and examines it. "Yeah... and it's only three years out of date. That's... actually pretty good!" He sticks it into one of the side pockets of his pants. This is his, and he won't give it up for the world.

Same as the chocolate.

They load up with everything they need, leaving the room pretty empty, before making their way upwards again.

Hugh is a little worried now that they won't actually find their way out, but Paul seems to know where they're going, so maybe they'll be fine.

"Hey..." Paul trails off, looking into one of the corridors. "Um, I don't know about you, but we didn't check that way yet, so if you're not too tired, we could head over there. We might still find something."

No, Hugh wants to say. His feet and ankles and knees and thighs and back hurt and he just wants to lie down and be unconscious while also hiding the chocolate from everyone else.

But he also wants to spend more time with just Paul, so he says, "Yeah, sure." and off they go.

 

 

 

 

 

There is nothing down that corridor though. A few more rooms with nothing in them but more sweets. Alright, that's not nothing. That's actually very important and great. 

And finally they come to another hole punched into the wall, torn metal sticking out, but overall the corridor runs out into a sort of balcony. Sans handrails, of course.

It's dark outside. And cool.

They both stand there, side by side, looking out onto the plains in front of them.

"You know, we could just hang around here for a while," Hugh says lamely. "Look at the stars, try the chocolate. Just... you know, just the two of us, not going back to camp yet."

"You don't like them, do you?"

"You don't like them either though."

Paul laughs softly. "No. I... I wanted to hate all humans when I came here, and I did, and then I got to know you better, and I couldn't hate you anymore, or Tilly, and then I spent so much time around especially you, and - and I guess all the people in medbay who were just glad they were receiving any kind of help. And I forgot that not only do I hate almost all humans, um, they hate me too. I'm different, and they don't like that."

"They never do," Hugh says quietly. "That's the thing with so many people. There's so often something wrong about you in their perception that they want to hate you based on that."

"It... kind of sucks."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I wish I could introduce you to more people. I mean - if you're still willing to come stay with me after the war, I'll absolutely do that. There are a lot of nice people out there too."

"I'm an android, Hugh." Paul turns towards him. "Some rules are not for me, and sometimes... well, just because a lot of people are being disliked for who they are... you know, that's something you can change, if you want to. Or you can decide that people who think that this characteristic is important just aren't for you. But they dislike me simply for what I am. Not for my looks or my characteristics, just because I'm an android."

Hugh steps out onto the ledge and takes off his pack, sitting down. He pats the ground next to him to indicate Paul should sit down as well. "You know, not too long ago, people hated other people based on their skin color or race. And... I don't know why. You'd think people can look past that stuff and focus on who you are as a person, but... they don't want to. I think a lot of people are so insecure that they want to ostracize someone else and belittle them so they can then feel better than the group they're excluding. It's a sign of weakness. But..." He leans forward and takes Paul's hand. "I know that doesn't make it any easier, or any more fair. But... well, just try to remember that they're wrong. And also - um, this is something Tilly actually taught me, which she learned from her grandma - only let the opinions of the people you actually care about matter to you. Or the people who are actually important to your life. And... Landry's people aren't important to your life. You just share some time with them, but it's not forever. I'll make sure of that."

"You say that like it's going to be _you_ who saves _my_ life. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Paul is smiling again, and he's not pulling his hand from Hugh's grasp.

"There are many different kinds of saving someone's life. For example: I'm going to save your life now from not knowing what chocolate tastes like. Hand me some."

Paul grins and withdraws his hand, rummaging through his pack. "What's so special about it?"

"Chocolate? It's really good, that's what's so good about it."

"No, this particular brand of chocolate. Cadbury's."

"Oh. Um, it tastes the best? I don't know why though, but... it's the best."

Paul hands him a bar.

"This is a holy moment," Hugh announces. And rips the packaging incorrectly.

Some chocolate dust falls out.

Paul snickers softly. "I always imagined church differently."

"Well, this is the church of chocolate. We do things differently." Hugh breaks off a row and hands it to Paul. "You get first taste. Bear in mind it doesn't taste as good as if it were fresh, but I think it's safe to eat. Take it."

Paul lifts it to his mouth and takes a careful sniff. "It smells... sweet? How do I - just nibble?"

He does. There are a few seconds where his face remains expressionless, and then he *beams*.

"Oooh. I get what you mean now. Oh wow.”

Hugh laughs and breaks off a row for himself too, biting off the first piece and letting it melt in his mouth. He can’t help but moan when the taste hits his tastebuds. Oh man.

He falls backwards onto the ground, getting as comfy as he can and stares up at the stars while his mouth fills with melted chocolate.

“Help yourself.” He sets the rest of the bar on the ground between them before resting his hand against Paul’s thigh. It feels entirely natural. “You know, this place is actually so beautiful. Just look at the stars. The sky is so clear here. I’ve never seen this many stars at home, no matter where I was.”

Paul looks down on him, face a mixture of happiness and mourning. His hand drops on top of Hugh’s and strokes over his knuckles before shoving his backpack away and the chocolate closer to Hugh. He makes to lie down next to Hugh, taking his hand in the same movement and wiggling a little until he’s almost pressed against Hugh, their joined hands still between them.

“Do you see that really bright star surrounded by the four very small ones right there?” He points. “Go to the left of that, the next three stars in a straight line, and then above the last one, towards the upper right, there’s another brighter star. Do you see it?”

“I do.”

“That’s Earth’s sun. Earth is right there.”

“Oh,” Hugh breathes. He doesn’t know whether the tears in his eyes and the tightness in his throat are because Paul is holding his hand, snuggling close, or because he showed Hugh where home is, or because of the chocolate or simply because he’s so exhausted, but he can’t fight it. Maybe he doesn’t want to. Maybe he just wants to feel. It’s been a long time since he’s done that.

“It’s the twenty-first of December there right now,” Paul continues, leaning his head against Hugh’s shoulder while still looking up. “Going by the weather reports of the last few years, there might be a smattering of snowflakes even in San Francisco, even though the climate there is rather mild.” He squeezes Hugh’s hand. “I still want to come with you, after - after the war. So maybe… maybe next year around this time, you could show me what people do for Christmas.”

Tears spill over the corners of Hugh’s eyes, running hotly down the sides of his face, and he just nods. “I will,” he manages to get out. “I’ll show you all of it, I promise.”

Paul exhales softly and lets his outstretched arm fall, hand coming to rest on Hugh’s stomach. “We’ll make it through this. And then we’ll go home.”


	2. XXI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here you shall find pain the likes of which you could never have imagined
> 
> also sorry for not updating last week, i was suuuuuper busy, but i'm doing nano now so i'll be updating regularly again to bring you Pain :)

Hugh keeps a hand on his pants pocket while they dispatch the drones, making sure his damn meds are really with him and not anywhere else in the universe, and finally he and Paul curl up in their tent. It feels almost too intimate now to snuggle into Paul, because he’s still all too aware of Paul pressing into his side on the wreck, holding his hand. But Paul pulls him into his embrace anyways and Hugh leans into it, letting his head fall against Paul’s shoulder and then he’s out like a light.

 

 

 

 

This time, he wakes up almost exceptionally cozy. Paul smells nice and sleepy and his breath is soft and Hugh just takes some time to listen to his heartbeat.

If Paul were his boyfriend and they were home on Earth and had five minutes before they needed to get up, or maybe the whole morning, that’s exactly what Hugh would do. He always liked cuddly guys, always liked waking up in someone’s arms. Feeling safe. 

And he likes it now more than ever.

Paul doesn’t call him out on it. His hand on Hugh’s neck tightens momentarily, indicating he’s definitely awake, but for some reason he allows Hugh this.

If Paul were human, this would definitely be the kind of platonic snuggling you only have with very, very close friends. If Paul were human, this could also be the snuggling of someone you’re in love with, where you don’t know they’re in love with you too, and you have this whole weird dancing around each other-phase where neither of you manage to make the first step, constantly worrying about whether you’re friends or actually in love.

Paul isn’t human.

Hugh very strictly suppresses the urge to push up and kiss him.

Instead he takes one last long breath that smells of Paul, pushes up, sits up, smiles at Paul and wishes him a good morning.

Also luckily the nightwatch calls the whole group to attention and that they’re going to leave soon, so the temptation to fall back into Paul’s arms and see whether he tastes of chocolate is lessened.

Paul smiles at him, lips parting slightly, and actually the temptation is there full force and Hugh wants to push his hands into his hair and kiss the breath out of him and stick his tongue into Paul’s mouth. Welp. That doesn’t sound fun, phrased like that. But it would be.

 

 

 

 

They pack their bags inside the tent, this time, because… well, Hugh _is_ selfish enough to want to keep the chocolate for himself (and Paul). Though he’ll also offer some to Michael… probably. Maybe. She _is_ his friend, but also this is about chocolate. 

Paul stays close to his side for today’s walking. They don’t talk that much, but Paul is very smiley and it seems like he’s looking at Hugh more often.

Also thankfully the ground stays flat. It’s very sandy still, but at least they’re not trying to scale walls.

On the other hand, they traded the thick, moist air of the forest for the burning air of the sun and by nine, maybe ten a.m., Hugh is pouring sweat. If they keep going like this, their water rations are going to deplete very soon, considering how pretty much everyone is throwing hopeful glances at the drones carrying their water supplies.

“We need to drink more,” Hugh tells Landry without preamble when they stop around noon. “The human body only needs two litres, maybe three per day, that’s what I told you when we set out, and it’s still true, but under these circumstances we all sweat way too much to keep that up. I have no way to treat any kind of dehydration. We need fluid, and we need salt.”

Landry sighs. “I know. But the next freshwater supply that we know of is a ten day’s hike that way and I don’t see our water supply lasting that long if we drink more. I don’t suppose your droid could run without water?”

Paul already only drinks a few sips every day, the minimum he can sustain his functions on, but Hugh bites down a mean remark.

“No,” he says instead. “What other ways to gain water are there?”

“Well.” She throws him a look. “We could hope for rain. Maybe pray. Maybe you can unlock your secret shaman powers and dance so it rains.”

He glares.

“What do you want me to do, then, doctor?”

“What about tapping the trees? They have water. I’m sure we could rig a system similar to how they get syrup out of maple trees. Then we run the water through the filter, same as we would with rainwater, and…”

“And then it’s safe to drink?”

“The filters are designed to filter out all toxins. It’s our best shot.”

Landry sighs and lets her head hang. “Your call, doc. You come up with a hardware store where we can get a tap, and then we can all drink your recommended three litres a day. Until then, it’s two per head.”

 

 

 

 

Hugh turns the problem over in his head while they walk again. His head is already pounding, and he knows damn well Paul is sneaking him water from his supply, so he’s still better off than the rest.

They need water, and they need salt. NaCl at best, but he’s willing to take pretty much any salt complex they can find, seeing how the nutri bars are supplying them with the right concentration of electrolytes. Now they just need something that supports that.

And they need water. Badly.

For which they need a tap. Which has to be made from metal. They have metal, even some spare pieces for all kinds of things, but none of those things are tap-shaped. And it’s strong metal, so a human couldn’t bend it in the correct shape.

A human couldn’t.

But…

Hugh speeds up his steps until he’s next to Paul again. “Uh, Paul, can I ask you something?”

He’s once again met with a sunny smile.

“So, I was wondering… could you theoretically bend metal?”

Paul shrugs. “Sure. Why?”

“Could you theoretically bend the metal our pack drones are made from?”

Paul throws them a glance, squinting a little to assess them. It’s very cute. “Sure. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

There is, Hugh realises, a giant, gaping flaw in his plan. Namely that he doesn’t actually know how to tap trees. On the one hand… sure, it can’t be that hard when squirrels figured it out. (Sidenote: Squirrels _did_ figure that out, didn’t they? It’s one of those weird anecdotes that you’re told once and then you never forget them but they often turn out to be wrong but you never remember the correct version.) But on the other hand… none of them are squirrels.

Oh, wow, excellent point.

But yeah, they don’t really know how to tap trees. It’s not like there aren’t enough around that they can try to their hearts’ content, but the sooner they find the correct way to do it, the sooner they can stop being thirsty.

“Can I ask you a question back?” Paul asks.

“Go for it.”

“Humans can’t survive well on the amount of water you’re getting at the moment, can you?”

Hugh snickers. “How did you figure that out?”

“I overheard your conversation with Commander Landry. I’ve been thinking about both your positions.”  
“Oh, have you? You know, that’s the stuff we used to write essays about in middle school. ’Of course person B’s point is correct because of these reasons, but from person A’s standpoint it makes a lot of sense that’ and so forth.”

“She has a point,” Paul says slowly. “You can’t survive a ten day hike to freshwater if you drink up all the water you have in the first three days.”

“And ongoing or massive dehydration leads to exsiccation, meaning death. That’s generally considered bad for survival.” Hugh keeps his tone dry, but to his surprise that still conjures a smile onto Paul’s face.

“I know that. I just mean… wouldn’t it be better if we continue on with less water than we need so we can make it to the freshwater supply?”

“Or we could get water from the trees,” Hugh suggests, immediately feeling very stupid because that’s a really stupid sentence to say.

“Which is why you want me to build a tap. I told you, I overheard your conversation.”

“You were thirty meters away.”

“I have good ears.”

Hugh sighs but leaves it be. It’s not really like he minds, after all. “So do you think you could build a tap?”

“Yes. I just need a short piece of pipe.”

“I’ll make sure you get it.”

Also, Hugh’s vision is already blurring in a way that he remembers very well from sitting in the library, trying to study for an exam but constantly forgetting to drink. It doesn’t feel good.

He still makes for Landry.

Paul stops him a few steps later, worry carving lines into his face that Hugh kind of wants to kiss away.

“Are you mad at me?”

“What?”

“Because I listened in on your conversation with Landry.”

“Oh! No, why?”

“You’re… you sound like you’re displeased with me.”

Hugh resists the urge to sigh again. “No, sorry. I just have a killer headache, an ongoing cramp in my calf, my back hurts from sleeping on the ground, I’m way too hot, I smell, I haven’t showered in days and - sorry, I don’t mean to complain. I promise I’m not mad at you. Thank you for listening.”

Paul’s eyes are soft and warm and they make Hugh’s heart beat a little faster.

“I barely did any listening. But… feel free to talk to me, if that’s what you need. I don’t mind listening to you complain, seeing how that’s all I did when I first came here.” His fingers wrap around Hugh’s elbow again. “I’m here for you, Hugh. And at our next stop, I’ll make a tap. How good are you on water until then?”

Hugh thinks of the almost empty bottle in his backpack, and then of the longing gazes Paul casts towards someone drinking when he thinks nobody is looking.

“I’m good.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Paul, I’ve seen the way you look when you see someone else drinking. How much longer are you going to pretend that you can keep up with practically no water?”

Paul sighs and drops his hand. “I can keep up. I’m not human, Hugh, I just… I don’t need as much water as you do, I just enjoy it.”

Hugh almost forgets to walk. “You consider drinking water a luxury?!”

“Yes?”

Oh god. Something sickening spreads through Hugh’s stomach. Paul considers drinking water a luxury. Oh, fuck. And all this time there was Hugh whining about the food and the beds and probably a million other things when Paul considered all this the epitome of luxury.

“Is that a problem? Like I said, I’m fine with the bit I am drinking. That’s enough to keep my systems running.”

“I - I didn’t know - I’m so sorry, Paul.”

“Why?”

“I keep forgetting that… for all my complaining, you’re - your life has improved, coming here. I’m sorry I keep making light of that.”

Paul snorts, shaking his head. “I know it’s ridiculous, don’t worry. And don’t feel bad for me, um… well, you’ve been so much kinder than most people, so don’t - don’t feel bad. I’m still very happy.”

“Right.”

If Hugh ever gets his hands on the people who thought they could just stuff Paul into a box and leave him there… 

 

 

 

 

Landry lets Paul have a piece of pipe that’s some kind of spare part for the drones when they take another break. Hugh uses this free time to set his pack down, strip off his jacket and shirt and plop down on the ground to lie in the sun and preferably not move. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t have any water to wash a nutri bar down with, and he doesn’t want to chance getting out the chocolate. Best case scenario, it’s melted into goo. Worst case scenario, everyone wants a piece.

The red grass is really, really painful to lie on.

Hugh sighs to himself and sits up again, opting to try and work out the kinks in his hurting calf. 

He can see someone coming over out of the corner of his eye.

Michael.

“Hi.” She sits down next to him, legs crossed and looking way too comfortable. “So… how did you find the supplies in the last wreck?”

Hugh grins. “Thank you for the tip. I suppose you’re here to collect your share?”

“No. Let’s just say that there was a lot more before Tyler and I came past it. We just… we couldn’t carry as much, so that’s why we left the rest. Obviously, I shared with Tilly. So, no, I just wanted to check on you. You seem… different today.”

Hugh leaves his calf be and squints against the bright light to look at her. 

“You know I’m in love with Paul, right?” he asks without preamble.

She scoffs. “ _Yes_. Hugh, I have eyes in my head.”

“Right.”

“Did you tell him? Did you - oh my god, did you guys - did you - on that ship?!”

“What?! NO! Michael! No! Jesus! No,no we didn’t! No, nothing like that. We… Jesus, Michael, we just… cuddled. I guess. I - I didn’t - okay, first of all, I wouldn’t tell you if we did. That’s not - that’s _private_. And no, I also didn’t tell him anything, I just… it was nice.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me? That it was nice?”

“Michael, you realise that this is the closest I will get to going on a date while I’m here, right? Let me enjoy that. So. It was very nice. And we cuddled. Which was nice. And I wanted to thank you for the tip with the chocolate, because that was, like I said, very nice. And… kind of romantic, too. I guess I just wanted to talk about that with someone.”

“You need to kiss him.”

“I want to take it slow. He’s not some kind of fling, Michael.”

“Sure, but when we all die here, you’ll want to at least have gotten to second base.”

“And which one is that again?”

“The one where you stick a hand under his shirt.”

Hugh groans and hides his face in his knees. “Which part of ’I want to take it slow’ doesn’t register for you?”

“I know how you feel.” Her voice is soft. “But… I’m just saying, youmight not have all the time in the world here.”

“Is that how you and Tilly - how you fell in love so quickly?”

“Kind of, yes. Obviously also because Tilly is - she’s rather forward in that regard.”

“Right. Well… at least you two knew you liked each other.”

“He likes you too, Hugh. Very much. Please give it a try. I wouldn’t miss what I’ve got with Tilly for the world. Also, don’t reply, because he’s heading over.”

Hugh groans some more and hides his face some more.

The worst thing is that Michael is right. Paul likes him. No matter how oblivious Hugh might be about these things sometimes, he knows Paul likes him. And he definitely likes Paul back. Very much. So it should be so easy to tell Paul that - that Hugh really likes him.

Fuck, maybe he should do that.

“Look!” Paul exclaims, holding out a warped piece of pipe towards Hugh. “What do you think?”

Hugh takes the makeshift tap and examines it. It’s basically just an L-shaped pipe with one end squished together so it’s pointy. “Looks good. Want to try it out? That group of trees over there looks especially… liquid.”

Michael snorts into her water bottle.

Hugh gives her a gentle kick and gets up, grabbing his jacket but forgoing his shirt. He’s not actually sure how dangerous Alterra’s sun is, and he should probably protect his skin.

Paul follows him over to the little grove.

“So how does this work?”

“I… actually don’t know,” Hugh admits with a short laugh. “But from what I know, you kind of… slam the tap into the tree and if you hit the right vein, water will come out. I think. I’m not sure, but I think these just have a water reservoir inside them.”

Paul nods. “What were you talking about with Michael? Who likes you? Is it your - the guy you have a crush on?”

Hugh’s heart vibrates a little, it seems. “Uh. Yes. I think - I hope he likes me, I mean I hope I’m reading his signals correctly.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No.” Hugh sighs. “And I probably won’t. There’s… you know, there’s a difference between someone liking you and someone loving you. It’s just… a difference in feelings.”

“Hmm. I don’t know how to quantify that, but… I think I know what you mean. I - for example - I like you different than how I like Tilly. I like both of you very much, but… different. You’re both my friends though.”

_Oh_.

Hugh tries to keep walking despite the absolutely unreal quality of ’Paul doesn’t like me like I like him’. The edges of his vision are blurry.

_Fuck_.

And here he’d done nothing but prepare himself for how Paul would reject him and now here he is, not the least bit ready to hear that at all. 

Paul doesn’t love him back.

Hugh swallows down the tears and the lump in his throat and doesn’t stumble.

Oh god, Paul doesn’t love him back.

“Did I say something wrong?”

He hates the uncertainty in Paul’s voice, but he hates the truth even more. That Paul did say something wrong. That he’s, fuck, he’s supposed to love Hugh back and then they’re going to hold hands and kiss and cuddle and they can hold each other and be in love and love each other and that they’ll win the war simply by the power of their love and they’ll go home and be happy ever after.

“No, of course not,” he says instead, fighting to keep his voice steady.

“You sound upset.”

“No! No, I, I’m very glad to um, that you consider me you’re f-friend.” Hugh tries blinking the tears away again. “You’re my friend too, Paul.”

“Are you really fine?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Come on, let’s see whether we can tap this tree.”

Hugh watches while Paul hammers the tap into the tree pretty much with his bare hands and tries not to feel… well, what is he supposed to feel right now? Shock, maybe? Or sadness? Definitely not anger - men who react to rejection with anger are awful and not at all mature, and they probably didn’t care about the other person as a person in the first place.

Disappointment, definitely. A little resentment, too. Mostly sadness. 

A whole fucking lot of sadness.

Hugh bites the insides of his cheeks and wills his eyes to stay dry.

He’s forty-four years old, he should be able to take this with a little more dignity and a little less - he shouldn’t let it get to him so much.

Or maybe that just means he was really badly in love.

Is.

He is in love. Still. Very much. He’d still die to see Paul smile, laugh, be happy. He still craves those little touches he’s gotten, the smiles, the blue of Paul’s eyes, the way his lips curl, the way he speaks and moves and looks, the little frowns, his hands, the way it feels to hold him, the way he smells.

He still wants Paul to look at him with love in his eyes.

But… it also makes sense that Paul doesn’t want him. Fuck, of course he doesn’t. Not with how desensitise and cold Hugh has become, how selfish and uncaring and… well, all the other nasty things you could’ve observed him be when he was still at Isthmus, still treating patients.

 

 

 

 

The tap works, the scanners even consider the water to be immediately drinkable, but the filters work fine as well, so they extend their break to move to the little grove, everyone drinks their fill, Paul makes some more taps and they even clean up at least a little bit.

It’s a gigantic boost to morale, of course, and since Paul is the one actually bending the pipes into taps and tapping the trees, he’s suddenly a bit more popular and most certainly the centre of attention.

That leaves Hugh to slink into the shadow of a slightly larger tree and hide out there and nurse his wounded heart.

Oh god, but it hurts.

Ideally, he’d finish his shift, go home, change into his pyjamas, order food and then wrap himself in blankets and stare morosely at the TV, wondering why he’s not loved back, which part of him is wrong, what he needs to change in order for the other guy to like him back, even though he knows perfectly well you can’t force love, and if someone doesn’t love you for who you are, changing yourself to fit their ideal is… bad, so to speak.

Unfortunately, Hugh’s shift here ends never and there are no pyjamas, no blankets, no food delivery services and no TV and especially no privacy. So instead he watches the sun slowly go down, occasionally taking sips from his newly refilled water bottle and tries to ignore how small he feels inside.

At least Paul is still his friend. At least… well, at least Paul doesn’t hate him. And still wants to be his friend. That’s… technically, that’s the ideal outcome. And of course, if both parties are serious about that and put in the work, things like that can work. It happened to Hugh before, and it hurt a lot, but if you can keep the friendship it’s usually a pretty tight friendship afterwards, because, well, you shared something pretty intimate and got your heart broken but you still trust each other so much and all that.

 

 

 

 

Landry decides to camp here for the night, letting the filters work overnight so they can stock up on water. Hugh doesn’t involve himself much in that, just puts his shirt and jacket back on as soon as it starts getting colder.

Paul pops open their tent eventually, and when the first stars start blinking in the dark sky, Hugh decides to hell with it and goes to join him.

Paul is waiting for him, sitting cross-legged in the classic ’we need to talk’ position.

Hugh takes off his boots but leaves everything else on because the night is going to be cold. “Hi Paul.”

“Did I really not say anything wrong? Because I feel like you’re… mad at me. You didn’t talk to me at all since we hit water… since I said you are my friend. You are, of course, but if you’d prefer not being friends with - with someone - some _thing_ like me, I understand, of course.”

“Of course I want to be friends with you, Paul. I just - this may have been a miscommunication. What I meant to say is… I’m very happy you hold me in such high regard. I guess I just… I didn’t expect you to say that, of course. I’m just sad because we have - we don’t have much time, do we?”

Paul frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean - we, the two of us, we can only exist like that here, can’t we?”

“I don’t understand? You said you’d - that I could live with you, when we get back to Earth. You don’t want that anymore?”

“I do! Just - I don’t think we’ll make it.”

Paul’s lips form a pretty pink o as he sighs. “Of course. There’s the whole war going on.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s easy to forget, isn’t it? Since we’re so far away from everything now.”

“Yes.”

“I really like you, Hugh. I didn’t mean to - I really didn’t mean to offend you. I honestly enjoy spending time with you, and - Hugh, can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Or two?”

“Two as well.” Hugh tries to smile and look as inviting and trustworthy as possible. It might be a little pathetic that he still clings so desperately to Paul liking him, but… hell, can he be blamed when it’s a guy like Paul?

“Um.” Paul laughs softly and looks down on his hands. “I - don’t even know with which to start, because they’re both kind of - I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

“I won’t.”

“I really like that you trust me so much that you let me keep you warm at night.”

“Oh,” Hugh says. A shimmer of hope unfolds in his chest.

“I also understand why you have a crush on a guy. They’re um. They’re very - guys - men - they’re very attractive.”

The shimmer of hope gets brutally crushed.

“What I don’t understand though,” Paul carries on. “Is why you don’t like women too? They’re attractive too.”

If two months ago you would’ve told Hugh that he’d have a crush on a bisexual android, you wouldn’t have gotten a particularly nice response. But, right, Paul is here, Paul is very attractive, Paul is at least bisexual, maybe pansexual, definitely queer and very rainbow-coloured.

Just why does Hugh have to fall for the guys who are queer but not available?

“Um, Paul, you know, there are some men who like other men, some men who like women, some men who like nonbinary people, some men who like two of the three, some men who like all three… it’s all very natural and very - it’s alright, you know. Me, I’m only into guys. You apparently not.”

Paul smiles softly, fiddling with the hems of his sleeves. “No, I’m not. But - it’s confusing. There are so many people who just - who are very pretty and - well, at least one of them I really, really, _really_ like.”

“That’s alright. Lots of people feel that way, you know. Just… consider yourself lucky to get even more eye candy.”

“Right.” Paul actually looks relieved, and now Hugh gets a little bit of that smile. “Thank you.”

And because Hugh can’t resist but poke the bruise, he asks: “So, the guy you have a crush on.”

Paul beams.

“Tell me about him.”

“I really like him! He’s so - he’s very strong and he’s so kind and so nice and he’s - he tries to be there for everyone else, you know, and he always tries to do the right thing, but he also makes me smile so much and I feel like - I feel like something in my chest is going to explode when he smiles at me. He makes me feel really good. And he’s very good looking, too. I may not have much experience with that, but compared to every other man I’ve seen so far… he’s definitely the best looking. He’s got very gentle hands, too.”

Paul keeps talking about this guy in vague enough terms, but he’s positively _gushing_ , and every hope Hugh had for Paul maybe, possibly changing his mind and seeing that there’s a lonely doctor right here who’s willing to give him all the love he possibly can is getting crushed under an increasingly heavy boulder.

“You really like him, huh?” Hugh asks after Paul has exhausted himself on praising this mystery man.

“Yes! He’s - I mean, I’m not hoping for anything, of course - I doubt he’d even want me. But… ah, I really like him. You probably know what that’s like, with your crush.”

Well, if your crush doesn’t like you, _I_ like you very much, Hugh wants to say. He doesn’t, of course.

“Maybe you should tell him one day,” he says instead. “You know, it’s possible he likes you too and you’ll both just never realise you both like each other, and it would be a shame if you never got together. You’d miss so many chances.”

Paul snorts. “Take your own advice, doctor.”

“I would, but… he likes someone else. I know that.”

“I’m sorry.” Paul reaches over and puts his hand on Hugh’s arm. He’s so fucking earnest about it, too. “That must be difficult for you. Can I help you with that?”

Yes, by kissing Hugh like his life depends on it.

“No, I’m afraid not. It’s just… I wish he’d like me. But nevermind that. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“Of course.”

They snuggle together again and Hugh tries not to hate whatever asshole out there will one day have this every night, unless he’s too stupid to see that Paul fancies him.

Lucky fucker.

If he hurts just a hair on Paul’s head, Hugh will punch every single tooth out of his mouth.

He snuggles further into Paul and relaxes, thinking sleepy thoughts instead. And mentally flipping the mystery crush guy the bird because ha, guess who’s snuggling with Paul right now? Yeah, that’s right.


	3. XXII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and welcome to a chapter where things are okay and fine and dandy and nothing bad happens ever because why would i do that? : )  
> enjoy!

This morning, Hugh _knows_ Paul is asleep when he wakes up. They’re lying facing each other, and Paul’s eyes are closed, his breath comes in little puffs and his eyes are moving under his lids.

This close, Hugh can see how white Paul’s eyelashes are. He can count them too.

_He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not…_

He ends on a ’he loves me’.

Hugh exhales softly and tries not to laugh. Yeah, _surely_ Paul loves him.

He kind of wants to stroke Paul’s jaw. See whether it’s really as sharp as it looks. It would look so good with a little bit of stubble, maybe. And with Hugh’s hand on it.

Is it morally wrong to gently touch someone in a loving way after they confirmed they don’t love you?

Hugh lifts the top of the sleeping bag enough to reach out his hand and stroke a thumb over that jaw. It’s silky smooth, which is kind of rude, considering how human men never wake up like that.

It’s also kind of nice.

Paul’s lashes flutter and he exhales softly before blinking his eyes open. They’re a far darker blue than usual, pupils wide and black, and he looks thoroughly sleepy.

“Good morning,” Hugh whispers into the space between them, withdrawing his hand and hugging it close to his chest again, where it’s warmer than outside the sleeping bag.

Paul smiles and his eyes flutter almost shut again. “How often do humans dream?”

“What? Uh, occasionally. Why?”

“I had the most lovely dream right now. My crush was there, and he was holding my cheek, and then he kissed me.”

Hugh smiles. “That sounds very nice.”

“What is kissing like? You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I have. It’s fun. You’ll - when you and your crush get together, you’ll do that and you’ll enjoy it.”

“What if,” Wait, is Paul blushing? “What if… since I have no experience, what if he doesn’t like that?”

Oh, he’s definitely blushing.

“If he’s a good guy, he’ll understand. And… he’ll gladly teach you.”

“I don’t want to disappoint him though.”

Hugh’s heart aches when he replies: “You wouldn’t. Any guy who - who’s - he wouldn’t be disappointed. You’re a great, um, anyone would be lucky to have you, Paul, so he wouldn’t be disappointed. I promise.”

 

 

 

 

The day is a dark, gunmetal grey kind of day that would ideally see Hugh on the balcony of his old flat on Earth with a hot cup of tea, a warm blanket and a really good book. 

Instead, the air gets hot and pressuring really soon and they all trundle along miserably. And luckily even Paul seems affected by the weather, or at least the atmosphere, because he doesn’t try talking to Hugh. That’s something Hugh probably couldn’t take right now, having a nice little chat while violently being reminded that -

That he’s not good enough for Paul. Maybe not attractive enough, but definitely not good enough, value-wise. 

And that hurts more than he wants to think about.

Okay, maybe it’s conceited to think that, but Hugh always considered himself to be a good boyfriend. He values communication and honesty and trust, he considers himself to not be the jealous kind, he’s - fuck, where did he go wrong? Why does Paul like some random other guy and not him?

Also who is that other guy? Who did Paul hang around with enough to get a crush on him?

Hugh runs through all the guys in camp while he walks, considering each for the position of ’asshole who stole Paul’s heart’. It has to be someone who was in medbay a lot, because that’s where Paul spent almost all his time. Or - or it could’ve been someone who was mostly on night shifts… meaning Paul would’ve quietly left Hugh and the medbay, every night, to hang out with his lover.

The thought of Paul standing next to one of the heaters with a couple other soldiers, laughing and making jokes and flirting with the guy he fancies fills Hugh’s stomach with ugly, icy jealousy. Paul not even thinking of Hugh anymore, probably glad he’s asleep, probably hoping the night will never end because there’s some ape jock with a big gun who thinks he’s hot shit because he smokes and can change a tyre.

And there’s Hugh who… who can’t even give a damn about his patients anymore. Who drugged his superior simply because he felt like it, and who’s more fucking occupied with himself than doing his job.

So of course, after all the - after all the fucking lectures he held Paul about how important mental health and taking care of people and being there for them is and then after all the whining he did about how he got bitten by a fish or how he’s scared of the war while Paul’s crush actually went out there and fought and stared death in the face and probably got injured but got up again and kept fighting… yeah, really no wonder Paul took a fancy to that guy, whoever he is.

Hugh swallows against the rising bile and hangs his head and keeps walking.

At least Paul is still nice to him. And he should be really damn grateful Paul still considers Hugh his friend.

 

 

 

 

The next wreck shows up in the distance around noon, and then it inches closer and closer until they finally reach it around four p.m., eschewing any breaks they’d usually take. Landry wants the wreck salvaged and then for them to move on that same day, since they already lost so much time yesterday with stopping to tap the trees.

This one has a much bigger debris field, and they have to be really careful while walking. Hugh very much tries to keep any fanciful notions of him stumbling and hurting his ankles and then being carried by Paul out of his head.

That’s the problem. He’s so absolutely besotted with Paul that he sees Paul as less of a person and more an object, someone to focus his affections on.

So he needs to start giving a damn. About other people. About Paul. Stop his whining and actually _care_ about people again and show some fucking compassion.

He sighs to himself, and picks up his step. Shakes his head and tries to focus on where they’re going.

It’s a bit like making a New Year’s Resolution, taking it and trying to make it feel big and then setting it somewhere where he’ll always be reminded of it. But if the way to Paul’s heart is by being kinder and more selfless and more understanding and a better listener and just all around a better person, a better doctor, a better caretaker, then that’s what he’ll do.

 

 

 

 

“Alright, two hours,” Landry calls out once they’ve arrived at the wreck. She nods to Hugh. “Obviously I can’t force you out, but you two better be quick. We’ve got at least 20 kilometres left to walk today to make up for yesterday. I’llmake sure the drones are ready as soon as you come out.”

Hugh just nods, already feeling the day’s walk in his legs and bones. He’s not looking forward to scavenging the wreck while everyone else rests and then walking another 20 kilometres and then sleeping on the ground again. He’d always been able to count on having a bed at night, and now he doesn’t even have that.

Right. He’s whining and thinking of himself again. Better think of all the people he’ll be able to help with the supplies they’ll hopefully find.

He empties almost everything out of his backpack as quickly as he can and gets one of the big flashlights again. Paul is faster than him again and already heads over to the wreck, checking out the best way to get into it. So Hugh heads over to him, plastering a mostly fake smile on his face and reminding himself that he’s excited to scavenge this wreck quickly and thoroughly to save lives, which is something he enjoys.

Paul smiles at him, and Hugh’s smile becomes more genuine.

“I’m so glad we’re able to get all these resources,” Hugh says, internally wincing at how fake and plastic his words sound. “It’s really the only way I’ll be able to help all the patients I’ll have, seeing how the war is really picking up at the moment.”

That’s the right thing to say, right?

Apparently not. Paul looks displeased.

“I… guess so, yes,” he says slowly. “After you.”

Hugh ducks into the opening in the wreck, smile falling from his face as soon as he turns away from Paul. Maybe he sounded a little too excited that people get hurt? Probably, yeah.

“One of my proudest moments as a young doctor was just a few days into my first actual real job as a doctor. There was this old lady who’d broken her leg, pretty standard, and I’d only known her the handful of days I was working on her station, and when she got discharged she thanked us for how much we’d helped her, because she had been so scared she’d never walk again. And obviously I hadn’t been involved in her recovery at all, but that’s when I knew I was in the right job, because while I didn’t help her, I’d help so many others. That gave me a lot of courage, I guess. To try and keep doing the right thing.” It’s a true story. Hopefully Paul will believe it and - oh, what the hell, and maybe it’ll let Hugh rise in Paul’s esteem again.

“I understand that. Did you have more of those patients?”

Hugh shines his flashlight around the sloping corridor he’s standing in, trying to find out whether it’s worth climbing it. But right, he’s got to show more enthusiasm.

His feet also really hurt and he doesn’t want to climb this thing.

More enthusiasm, coming right up.

He clips the flashlight to the hooks in the straps of his backpack and, with one hand on the corridor’s wall for leverage, begins climbing up.

“We did, yes. A lot, really. Of course there are always some that aren’t nice, for whatever reason, but a lot are really nice and… and very cooperative, I guess, which makes it easier to work with them, and more enjoyable too, of course. But even the ones that aren’t so nice… I guess it’s still pretty apparent how much they appreciate when doctors do what they can, and that always gives me a little extra boost, you know.”

“That’s sweet.” Ugh, Paul still sounds odd.

The first room they come across is open though, so Hugh doesn’t reply and instead hops in. It looks like an office - several desks and chairs that have been welded to the floor, and the walls littered with cracked screens.

“Looks like an office, I think,” Hugh says, just to state the obvious, like an idiot. “I doubt there’ll be much medical supplies here… except for some first aid kits, maybe.” He gets on tip toes to open the little compartment just above the door with the red cross on. Whoever thought that above the door would be an excellent place to put a first aid kit?

The compartment slides open and -

_Whack!_

Hugh stumbles under the assault of several crinkling packages of something that hit him right in the face. He blinks and stares at the offender.

’SNICKERS’ one package proclaims in big, bold letters.

Hugh stares.

“That doesn’t look like first aid to me,” Paul says, stepping next to Hugh’s shoulder. “It looks like more chocolate?”

“Yeah.”

Oh god, Hugh hadn’t expected for his resolution to be tested so early. A good, selfless person would share these treats with the rest of their group. But… those are Snickers. And some M&M’s too. And Reese’s.

Honestly, when Eve had to choose between the apple or staying in God’s hamster ball, she had an easier choice.

“Hugh?” Paul sounds worried. “I know it’s not the right thing to do, I really do, but… we should keep all the sweets for ourselves.”

Oof. 

“I know you think that being selfless is important, and I’d agree, from what I know,” Paul continues. “But… I really like chocolate. And I liked - when you gave me some, in that other wreck. I liked that. I don’t want the others to have a part of that. Is that… wrong?”

He sounds so earnest, and so confused and Hugh enjoyed that night on the other wreck too, very much so and maybe this is a test, but Hugh grew up with three sisters so yeah, he knows to hide chocolate and keep it for himself as much as possible.

“Of course it’s not. It’s maybe a bit mean, but… I feel you. And, um, I agree.”

Paul laughs softly and bends to pick up the sweets. “Alright. All ours then.”

 

 

 

 

They speed through the next rooms. The wreck is at a really bad angle, so there’s a lot of climbing involved, and to Hugh’s dismay he’s very out of shape. It’s embarrassing to be panting as much as he is while Paul’s breath is still perfectly level, and on occasion he even needs Paul’s help to make a jump or climb out of a room.

Most of what they find is first aid kits; sometimes bigger kits, and definitely a lot of pain medication and bandages, which is really what they need most. There are less personal effects here, too, which makes it a little easier to walk around.

Still the thought of spending months in what’s basically a glorified tin can, with no real windows and just the ever-same grey metal walls, that must’ve been awful. Especially since everything has the exact same design, the exact same colour scheme, uniform like one of those really big hospitals where you only know where you are because there are signs.

“Paul, were you in cryo when you came here?” Hugh wonders aloud after they’ve passed yet another tiny slit of glass that passes for windows here.

“I can’t be put into cryo,” comes the answer.

Hugh turns around. “Wait, you were conscious the whole six months?”

Paul shrugs. “Yes.”

“What - what was the ship like? Wasn’t it creepy?”

“I don’t know. I was in one of the storage compartments.”

“What?!”

Paul looks away and scuffs his boot over the floor like he’s ashamed. “I’m just an android, Hugh. I just… I waited. They didn’t take me out of my storage box, they only gave me a quick briefing once I’d arrived here. I didn’t know any- I didn’t know I’d left Earth. Or, well, I knew that, I just didn’t know where I was headed. Of course I knew I was being shipped somewhere, and the takeoff and all that involved of course rather unique sensations, but I didn’t know why or where I was being sent. I assumed it would be a mining colony, or some other place inhabited by drones. I didn’t,” He huffs a laugh, mostly to himself. “I never thought I’d feel the wind on my face. I never thought I’d feel the touch of a human again. I never, ever thought someone would address me with the name I chose. I -” He swallows and blinks several times in rapid succession. His voice catches when he speaks again. “I’m so grateful, Hugh, for the way you treat me, for the opportunities I have here, for all the things I get to experience. I don’t know how to put all that into words but,” He sniffs. “I’m so grateful.”

Hugh drops his flashlight and pulls Paul into a tight hug. There’s a lump in his throat too, and he doesn’t trust his voice to stay steady, so he just tries to put everything he can’t say into the hug.

Paul presses his face into Hugh’s shoulder and sniffs again, softly, and now there are tears burning in Hugh’s eyes too. He lifts a hand to Paul’s neck and squeezes it gently, then scratching at his hairline. Paul shudders in his embrace.

“I’m so sorry,” Hugh whispers, also tucking his face into the angle between Paul’s neck and shoulder. Paul smells really good there, clean and minty and male. “I’m so sorry they treated you like that. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Paul nods and doesn’t let go.

Neither does Hugh. It’s so good to snuggle into another person, to hold and be held, especially by someone he loves as fiercely as he loves Paul. 

And Paul keeps moving as well, those incremental movements you make when you want to keep the hug meaningful - changing the angle of his head, tightening his arms around Hugh, moving his hands, leaning just a hint closer.

And then Hugh’s stomach growls.

Paul snickers and withdraws. “I think you’re hungry?”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And seeing how it’s my task to keep you alive and healthy-” He shucks one of the shoulder straps of his backpack off, swinging it around to reach inside. “- you should eat something healthy.”

Hugh grins at the offered Snickers. “That’s hardly healthy.”

“It has a lot of energy, which you’ll need. Also you’re not diabetic and have to watch your sugar levels; you also don’t have any allergies to any of the ingredients, and you looked very happy when we found them, meaning you like them.”

“Well, who doesn’t like Snickers? Also hey, how do you know I’m not allergic to peanuts or something?”

Paul’s cheeks redden slightly. “I um, I read your file. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting- I mean, so I could - in case something happens, so I’d know what problems there might be.”

“That’s really sweet of you.”

Paul shrugs and blushes some more and looks away again. “Go ahead, eat something. I’ll um, actually, it might be - you’re exhausted, so you should rest while I check the rest of the wreck really quickly.”

“Oh. Oh, but - Paul, I can help you!” And, remembering his resolutions: “I want to help you, too. After all, it’s kind of my fault we’re here, so I can’t just slack off.”

Paul gives a sweet, soft sigh and smiles. “You’re exhausted, Hugh. Please rest.” He pushes Hugh and the sweets against the wall. “It’s fine. I’ll be back quickly.”

He leaves before Hugh can say another word.

Hugh slides down the wall so he can sit and take some of the aching pressure off his feet. Sure, of course he enjoys being given a break, but it feels bad. He should be helping Paul, should be doing everything he can to find more supplies.

Paul rounds a corner and is gone, and Hugh exhales with relief. God, it feels good to get off his feet. He should probably take his boots off as well, give his feet some kind of break, but that’s just going to make him look bad when Paul comes back.

Instead he dives into the sweets. They’re not completely hardened with time yet, surely an indicatorto how many preservatives there are in there, but all the caramel goo and crunchy peanuts and sweet sugary goodness of chocolate more than make up for that.

Hugh knocks his head back against the wall and tries to relax his breathing. His mind wants more meditation, his back wants more yoga, his legs want a break. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a good hot massage, really.

Back on Earth his workouts more than once left him so sore and hurting he really did need a massage, and other times he just felt like treating himself, and sometimes it was just an exhausting week at work, and those massaging pads or rods didn’t always do it for him. And before he can stop himself, his brain enthusiastically procures the image of Paul in knee length white pants and a t-shirt, offering him to help work out some kinks from his back. He’s got very nice hands too, and he’d probably prefer minty oils over the warmer smelling ones, with an invigorating smell. Hugh would flinch a little at first and shiver and Paul would laugh and say something funny and Hugh would jokingly make a show out of agreeing to that oil, and then Paul would get his hands on Hugh’s bare skin, finally. He’s got very nice hands. Not like Hugh has spent a lot of time looking at them.

Okay, maybe he has. Fine.

But Paul is also very warm and it would be nice if he - if he touched Hugh more often.

That sounds wrong.

Alright, maybe Hugh would like to hold his hand. In the gay way.

Ugh, why did Paul have to let himself be hugged like that and - and thank Hugh like that when it’s really just platonic?

Hugh pouts to himself a little and eats more sweets.

 

 

 

 

Paul comes back almost way too quickly, because that means Hugh has to get back on his feet - and ow, that really hurts - and then they climb out of the wreck, fill up the drones, send them away, and then they keep walking. Hugh keeps his head down and his fingers wrapped around the straps of his backpack, eyes not even focusing on his boots and the red grass.

They’re all tired. When in the beginning of their journey most people had still been very chatty, they now walk in silence.

The sun sets in a blaze of red glory. Someone oohs at the way it reflects off the mountainside. Hugh doesn’t look up.

Finally they stop, pop up the tents, assign watches and whatnot. Hugh crawls into his tent before Paul is even in there, shucks his shoes and goes to sleep.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up to the world ending. Unholy wind is tearing at the thin fabric of their tent, howling with the raw power of a planet not shackled to humanity’s will. Then, torrential rain, like Mother Nature wants to tear whole strips out of their little shelter with nothing but water.

Hugh is stiff with fear, holding on to the warm body next to him, unable to do anything but strain his ears for the next gust of wind, the next flood of rain. He’s cold and damp, heart pounding in his throat, and he knows damn well they’re completely at the mercy of the planet’s weather.

“It’s okay,” Paul says softly, almost inaudible over the rain, and is that thunder rolling in the distance? “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Hugh really fucking doubts that. But instead of replying he just hangs on to Paul, squeezes his eyes closed and… and waits.

He falls into a restless sleep eventually, startling whenever it thunders or lightning strikes in the distance.

 

 

 

 

When it’s finally morning, Hugh awakes bathed in cold sweat. It’s still raining, and the air is icy and filled with moisture and the few contact points he has with Paul burn with heat. But at least the storm has mostly stopped.

“Good morning.”

“There’s nothing good about this morning,” Hugh says brusquely, eyes falling shut again. He doesn’t feel rested at all, doesn’t want to have to brace the wrath of nature outside.

Paul stays quiet.

Hugh feels bad.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve been really stressed and irritated lately, but I shouldn’t take that out on you. You’re already so helpful and understanding, I shouldn’t make you suffer for that. I’ll do better.”

“It’s alright. Nobody can always be a saint. You’re already doing better than most.”

“Better than your crush, too?” Hugh can’t help himself but make that snide remark.

Paul just chuckles. “Well, he’s pretty great.”

“Right.”

 

 

 

 

Hugh’s whole body aches when he crawls out of the tent, and the icy rain doesn’t help his mood at all.

Once again the ground is covered in thick fog. There’s probably a sun somewhere up there, higher than the soup they’re in, smiling a cruel smile and probably having a nice laugh about how they’re all down here in the rain and fog and cold.

Landry puts them on a leash again, everyone connected with ropes, even the drones so nothing goes missing, and off they go. 

This is probably how the ponies at fairs feel, bound to each other, staring at the butt of the one in front of you while trudging along.

Hugh’s hat and scarf don’t do much to keep him warm and dry, especially once the rain has soaked through them and is constantly dripping ice water down his neck. He deludes himself into believing that the wet fabric at least keeps the wind out a little bit and carries on.

When they make their first stop, they huddle into a little circle. Hugh hasn’t spent much time even looking at the others, so he’s almost surprised to see them looking as drawn as he feels.

They don’t talk, just stand together, taking a drink of water, eating some food, waiting until they have to start walking again.

And then they do.

The lighting doesn’t get better the further the sun (probably) rises, and the rain doesn’t stop, and it doesn’t get warmer, but they’ve got to keep walking anyways. At least it’s not too windy.

At night, they pop open their tents again, this time making sure to secure them better against the potential storm. Hugh strips off his clothes once he’s in the tent, figuring they might get a little dry over night. 

Paul is watching him curiously. “Aren’t you going to get cold when you’re naked?”

Hugh shrugs. “Yeah, but my clothes might get a little dry.”

“Oh. Wet clothes bother you, yes?”

“I - yeah they do, they make me cold and wet. Which I would enjoy in summer, but not when everything else is also cold and wet.”

“I see.” Paul crawls a little closer. Not that there’s much space between them when they’re in the tent anyways - they’re both adult men, and it’s a small tent.

A small and cold tent. Hugh would like some snuggles inside a sleeping bag soon with his personal space heater.

Hey, he’s got to take advantage until Paul’s crush pulls his head out of his ass.

Also, Paul’s skin has an orange glow.

“Uh, Paul? You’re kind of glowing there. Are you okay?”

“It’s my heating unit.”

Ooh, yeah, Hugh can _feel_ that, a proper dry heat emanating from Paul and nudging at his skin. It’ll take a while for it to sink so deep that it’ll banish all memory of cold and wet from his bones, but it’s already so good.

“If you don’t mind, you should go into the sleeping bag already while I still keep the heat going for a while, so your clothes are all dry and the tent too,” Paul says, watching Hugh with glowing eyes. “I can keep the heat going for the rest of the night, my energy reserves are stocked to the max. I should’ve kept you warmer the nights before, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were actually that cold.”

Hugh shakes his head. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Thank you for doing it now.”

He crawls into the sleeping bag and curls up into his favourite position. Even with his eyes closed he can see the glow Paul gives off, similar to a crackling fireplace. It’s surprisingly comforting, and maybe it’s because of the warmth filling their small space, or because Hugh is just so exhausted, but he falls asleep very quickly and very comfortably.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up feeling very toasty and kind of exhausted, the way you do when you really needed the sleep you got. It’s raining again, and there’s even some thunder rolling in the distance, the air thick with moisture. And for once the sleeping bag is warm all around.

“You slept through the entire storm,” Paul says by way of greeting. “You must’ve been really tired. Do you feel better now?”

“I do, thank you. Mmh. God, do you think we can convince Landry to have the day off today? I kind of just want to stay… right here. Eat some chocolate. Doze. Just wait out the whole entire war.”

“I would like that,” Paul admits. “As much as - well, as many opportunities the war has given me - going outside, meeting so many people, seeing so many things, being allowed my name… tasting chocolate… but I’m really not a fan of the whole war aspect. That’s just… not fun.”

Hugh snorts.

“What?! You don’t like it either!”

“That’s not why I laughed. I just - the way you expressed that, that was very funny. It’s true, war is -”

“Hell.”

“Actually, there’s a quote. ’War isn’t hell. War is war and hell is hell and out of the two, war is a lot worse.’ I forgot where it’s from - a TV show, I think? But it’s a good quote.”

“What’s the difference? War seems… pretty hellish.”

“They say that in the quote too, I just forgot the rest. But basically - in hell, everyone deserves to be there. In war, nobody does except for the very few who are directly responsible for the war to break out. Everyone else is just an innocent bystander.”

“That… makes a lot of sense.”

“Yes, we humans are very good at describing why we’re idiots. Come on, let’s go pack up and see what interesting new things we’ll do today. I hope we’ll go hiking, haven’t done that in a while.”

 

 

 

 

They leave the tent to find a minor problem posing itself: they are alone.

Some swaths of fog still waver over the wet ground, and it’s raining steadily from the grey sky, but overall the visibility is good.

And yet they’re alone.

Dread coils up in Hugh’s stomach. Ugly, slimy, black dread that’s trying to constrict around his windpipe.

“They didn’t leave us here, did they?” Paul asks.

Hugh remembers Hänsel und Gretel and that Lorca never did like him and he doesn’t know how to answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you're welcome : )


	4. XXIII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmm ok so i know i said things were going to be fine but uhhhhh,,,, tw for yet another of ye olde panic attacks, shortly after they talk about creature comforts, going to the end of that paragraph and the whole next one, and then discussions of panic attacks and depression and medication for the paragraph after that one
> 
> otherwise things are FINE i PROMISE and the chapter ends on a gay note (big surprise)
> 
>  
> 
> (something good happens in chapter 27 so you can look forward to that :D) (oh and then immediately after that something really bad happens so you can... also look forward to that?) (and something EXCEPTIONALLY good happens in chapter 36 so you can also look forward to that! yay!)

Hugh suddenly feels very chilly. And very, very alone. Like when you’re a kid and you lose your parents at IKEA and suddenly there are a lot of strangers there and the Klöndall is looking very threatening. Only there’s no intercom here, and no friendly sale assistants, and definitely not his parents.

He’s fucking terrified, deep down in his guts.

“Why did they leave us?” Paul asks, hovering just behind Hugh’s shoulder.

“I don’t know. Oh, god, Paul, I don’t know.”

“We’ll survive.”

“Will we though?” Hugh turns to Paul. “Will we really? We have no map, no comm, no compass, no food, I have a pocket knife and one of those water taps, and that’s it.”

“We’ve got the sun,” Paul says softly. “We can navigate by the sun. We can get water from the trees, and as soon as we make it to the water, we’ll have food too. Some trees are edible. And then we can follow the waterline and make it back to camp. I’ll be with you, Hugh, and we can make it. Together.”

This time Paul is the one who initiates the hug, and Hugh is ashamed of how much he needs that right now to calm his frantic nerves.

 

 

 

 

They pack up and then, after Paul has critically assessed the grey sky for a while, with rain running down his face, he’s decided on a direction, and off they go. At least Paul doesn’t set such an incredible pace as Landry does, which leaves Hugh able to at least look around a little and be aware of the beauty of this place.

Not that there’s much beauty to appreciate when you’re walking through rain, but it’s the thought that counts.

“You know, Paul… if you want to, we could check out the monolith now. Since we don’t know where we’re going anyways. And Michael did say it was close to water, just high up,” Hugh offers. Then he remembers the skeletons Michael talked about, the Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcement Unit. The visions.

“I thought about that too, actually. We might even be able to use the monolith as a sort of comm, depending on what it’s actually like there.”

Yeah, Hugh very much doubts that. Best case scenario is them not dying, but that’s about as good as it will get. God, he shouldn’t have suggested that.

“I doubt they’d send a rescue team for us.”

“Maybe not, but you’re a very valuable asset, Hugh, even Captain Lorca will see that. You’re a doctor. You’ve saved a lot of lives, and the more lives you save, the more soldiers he has to fight the war. He’ll be very interested in getting you back.”

Hugh swallows and pushes the fear back as far as he can. “Your word in God’s ear, Paul.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

“Me neither. Not anymore.”

 

 

 

 

The red plains end and instead they’re back to extremely uneven, green ditches and hills and tall spires. Hugh sighs to himself and thinks of his poor legs.

The fog has lifted enough to show a very sheer grey wall of mountain rising up into the low-hanging clouds, pretty much right in front of them. There can be scarcely a kilometre between them and the mountain, and that kilometre is filled with this hollowed green land, as far as Hugh can make out.

It’s glowing in a very pretty emerald colour though, rainwater glittering on the vegetation and reflecting the bit of sun that makes it through the heavy cloud cover.

Hugh trots to the first ditch and looks down. It’s pretty deep, and rainwater has accumulated at the bottom, forming little pools.

Paul joins him and looks down as well. “Depending on how far we make it through this today, we might be able to find shelter in one of the caves that are everywhere in this area. If my sensors are right, the rain isn’t over yet, but we might have a calmer night if we camp in a cave.”

“Right,” Hugh sighs. “Shall we, then?”

“I calculated a route based on the spectroscopic geological scan, and it should be the easiest one to walk, with the least crevices and hills to cross. I know you’re exhausted, Hugh. I don’t want to tax you too much.”

“Thank you.” He means it. “I’m not much of a hiker, even when it’s for fun. And this is… torture, to put it mildly.”

Paul actually laughs at that, leading the way to his route. “What are your preferred activities, then?”

“The gym, for sure. I love swimming as well, and especially in the ocean. Uh, not here, of course, not anymore. Unless you can promise me there’s absolutely nothing in the water. Um, I also like sailing, I like riding my sister’s horse whenever I see her, though I’m not particularly good at it. Biking is pretty nice too, or jogging. I used to go rock climbing with a colleague, which is a ton of fun. So I definitely like being outside, but… you know, just not hiking. Even though hiking isn’t what bothers me so much, it’s not having a nice bed to come back to. Good hot food. Maybe a campfire to roast s’mores over. I’m not the survivalist type.”

“So why not hiking?”

Hugh’s foot catches on something and he almost stumbles. “Uh, you just put in so much effort, and for what? You barely get anywhere and you have no creature comforts and I’m very much about those, so…”

Paul points out a hole for Hugh to avoid. “What’s a creature comfort?”

“Little things you enjoy. For me it’s hot showers or baths and a good bed and…” He chuckles. “Scented candles. Oh man. I’d forgotten how much I love those. Mhm. And ice cream. God, I miss ice cream.”

“So you don’t find hiking… peaceful? Calming?”

Hugh catches up to Paul to walk next to him and gives him a little grimace. “I find it kind of boring if I’m honest.”

At least Paul smiles back. “That’s fair.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Yes, very much.” Paul’s smile grows even bigger. “This place is so pretty. I’ve never seen a forest or a mountain or anything so close up, with so little other distraction. I would love to find out more about the ecosystem, the individual types of plant, how it all interacts and works together to build all of this.”

“You’d enjoy the botanical gardens back home then. Lots and lots of plants to study, often with an almost perfect environment simulated, and much closer to the nearest ice cream place.”

Paul snorts. “Sometimes you make me think all you did on Earth was eat.”

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying food! And no, I’ll let you know I also read books, went to work and… did other stuff.”

“What stuff? Tell me, I want to - well, I just want to know what life is like.”

Paul leads them over a very narrow natural bridge spanning yet another chasm. It’s almost too deep to see what’s going on on the bottom. Hugh keeps his eyes ahead and his terror sequestered in his chest. The sand is very slippery. And way too soft. The few patches of sheer rock are wet from the rain and just as slippery, and the tufts of grass only pretend to give support when really they are even more slippery than everything else. Don’t look down, as long as he doesn’t look down, weak knees would make sliding off even more likely, tread carefully, don’t - why did he look down he shouldn’t have looked down it’s deep and he could fall he will fall the ground is too slippery what if the bridge collapses -

“Hugh?” Paul’s voice comes to him like through a fog.

Hands begin to guide him until the ground under his feet feel more steady, but then his knees give out anyways and the world is bright and unfocused against the frantic beating of Hugh’s heart, fingers shaking now that his legs don’t need to take his weight anymore and Paul in front of him, talking, gesticulating, too bright too much too close too distant, dark blue uniform against grey sky green green green green grass, slick and slippery and making him stumble and fall with his head pushing between his knees pressing his fists against his eyes because he doesn’t want this doesn’t want any of this please make it go away he doesn’t want it, heart too fast and too loud and too present and he wants it to go away please please please fabric pressing into the side of his face and a strong hold around him while the ground moves too fast and he squeezes his eyes shut and claws his fingers through a hundred million and none layers of fabric to get something to hold on to while his heartbeat is shaking the planet apart.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the blue fabric and cries.

 

 

 

 

His eyes are raw and his throat swollen when he’s finally run out of tears. The earth has slowed down again. Cold is creeping through his thighs and butt where he’s sitting on the wet grass. Paul is still holding him just as strongly.

He tries to even his breathing, diaphragm still spasming and forcing air out in uncontrollable gasps.

He’s shaky. Everything he feels right now has an unreal quality, too sharp and too mellow at the same time.

Like he’s too damn small against the vast universe.

And he is, god, isn’t he, all alone out in the wild, with no direction to go, no comm, no map, no fixed point anywhere, and he can feel his breathing seizing up again and exhales more forcibly, longer. Inhales with precision and determination.

And calm. Calm is most important.

His fingers don’t stop shaking, but his heart stops beating so loudly and he can hear the rest of the world again. Mostly nothing. Some wind. The beating of another heart.

Hugh exhales shakily and lets himself lean again Paul. At least he’s not drowning anymore. The world is alright when it ends with his eyelids and Paul’s uniform. He can focus on that.

 

 

 

 

Eventually - very eventually - Hugh starts pulling himself out of the embrace. Paul lets him. He keeps a hand on Hugh’s shoulder though. It’s not a strong hold, more of a reassurance. An anchor. Heat comes through that anchor point, and a lot more stability than Hugh has right now.

“It’s okay,” is the first thing Paul whispers. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Hugh keeps his eyes closed and lets his head fall back, cool wind washing over the puffy skin. He’s always been an ugly crier.

The ground he sits on is wet and cold and surprisingly refreshing. Still, he needs a few breaths before he can open his eyes again.

“Do you feel better?” Paul asks.

Hugh looks at him. There’s concern written across his features. It’s heartwarming, really. He just can’t reply yet.

Paul squeezes his shoulder and doesn’t pry.

It takes a good couple more minutes until Hugh can breathe freely again, until he can lift his eyes to Paul’s again.

“Sorry,” comes from his mouth first. “I didn’t mean to freak out on you like that. I’m sorry.”

Paul shakes his head and smiles. “Doesn’t matter. Are you okay? Are you feeling better?”

Hugh doesn’t really want to push Paul away, but his butt and legs are getting really cold and wet and he doesn’t like that.

So he gets up - and promptly stumbles.

Paul steadies him. “Hey, be careful. Hugh, are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m so sorry, Paul, I didn’t mean to -”

“Shh. Don’t worry about it. What happened, Hugh? Why did you - what was wrong?”

Hugh exhales heavily again, more shaky than he’d like to admit, and tries to think. “I think… the trigger was the height. I’m afraid of heights, very much, and just - the bridge was so thin and everything was so slippery and I could see the ground and I just - I looked down and then I kind of lost it. But. Um. I think I’ve had one coming since this morning.” He reminds himself to breathe again and looks away. He doesn’t want to know what he’d find in Paul’s eyes.

“One… what?”

“A panic attack. I’ve been, um, I’ve been surprisingly stable ever since my meds ran out and so… I don’t know, I guess I had one coming for a very long time, but I was too exhausted, I guess, to really have it, and then - with the rest of the group gone this morning I just,” He swallows. “I just needed one tiny trigger and off I went.”

“You’ve - wait, sorry, do you even want to talk about it?”

Hugh shrugs. God, his knees are still jelly. “It’s fine.”

“You’ve had these, these panic attacks before, usually during attacks, right? But… you have your medication now, so I don’t see why they’re still happening.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ve had panic attacks before. I still - I can still have them while on medication, of course, but they’re super rare and need a really heavy trigger, so basically they don’t happen a lot. And… yes, I’m back on my meds, but they need some time, a few days or weeks to take effect again, you know? For my body to, um, work with them properly again, I guess you could say. They’re a long-term medication, not an on demand one.So they’re supposed to suppress the panic and the anxiety the whole time instead of just me taking them when I am feeling anxious or panicky or am on the verge of an attack. They also function as antidepressants, but… uh, well.”

“What?”

“Well, there’s a lot more to not being depressed than just swallowing some pills. I’m… managing, obviously, but…” He shakes his head. “To be honest, I don’t know how I’m functioning, and the longer I go without a really bad breakdown, the more scared I am of it when it comes. It will come. I’m not - I’m not taking care of my mental health properly. I’d need to see my therapist, I’d need to take time off, I’d need to eat different, change my sleeping schedule, my exercise schedule, a whole bunch of stuff, and I’d need to not fear for my life basically every day. So, um, meaning if I get off this rock, my poor therapist is going to have a handful, but until then I just need to do whatever I can to - just to cope.” He looks up then, catching Paul’s eyes, and to his surprise there’s pity there, yes, but also a fair bit of curiosity and a lot of acceptance and understanding. “I won’t lie to you, Paul. It’s… very bad. But I just need to - it’s not healthy, of course, but for the time being I just need to be functional.”

Paul nods, thinking.

Something loosens around Hugh’s chest and lets him breathe properly again. Admittedly, he had been very worried about how Paul would take this. Panic attacks, sure, everyone gets those on occasion, or anxiety attacks, due to stress of whatever kind. But depression is a difficult topic for many people to hear about.

“Um. Hugh? Do you, um. Do you self-harm?” Paul’s eyes are tight with worry, an unhappy frown knit into his face.

Hugh breathes. That question had to be expected.

“No. I never did um, at least not physically. Mentally… well, like I told you, that’s not something I can change or work at for the time being.” He shrugs uncomfortably. “Paul, I don’t want you to pity me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can see it on your face. Please don’t do that.”

“I’ll try. What _can_ I do though?”

“Be my friend.” Hugh scoffs. “That sounds stupid and demanding, but… yeah, I guess that’s what helps. And be honest with me. I think… um, I just, I need clarity, I need to know where I’m at, I need to know how much support I can get, and so, um, yeah, just keep being honest with me. You don’t have to see me through every bad episode or anything, just… just be my friend, if you can.”

He’s surprised by another hug, this one even fiercer than when Paul held him during the attack.

“I’ll be your friend until I die,” Paul promises with the same fire in his voice. “I promise.”

 

 

 

 

They continue on after that, Paul staying next to Hugh. It’s way too reminiscent of how Hugh used to walk next to elderly patientswhen he was still working in the adult wards on Earth -pretending they’re fine and he’s just walking next to them because he’s so proud of how well they’re doing when really he wants to be there if they fall. He’d always assumed he was being sneaky, but now that he’s on the receiving end… well, not so much.

“We should stop early today,” Paul says after a while. “You need rest more than anything at the moment, and it’s incredibly unlikely that we’ll find the others just by walking in a direction. We should make our way to the monolith instead.”

Hugh nods but doesn’t say anything.

A very, very distrustful part of him wonders whether Paul had planned this all along, had somehow gotten everyone else away from him, maybe moved them in the night… maybe killed them.

Hugh remembers the violence Paul had reacted with when they’d first talked about the Sunbeam missions. He’d choked Hugh. Twice. And then suddenly there hadn’t been a single spark of violence to be found anymore, and they’d all let it slide as a quirk of his programming, shortly wondered whether he was even stable, and then bigger problems occurred and they’d simply forgotten.

But Paul had always wanted to go to the monolith. And now it was even the most logical choice, so logical that Hugh had agreed without further thought. Paul had always supported Hugh, had always given him a shoulder to cry on, always been someone who listens and understands, put his own desires after Hugh’s, which is a really good way to make Hugh trust him.

Hugh swallows thickly and glances at Paul from the corner of his eye.

Maybe it’s just anxiety-induced paranoia. Maybe.

 

 

 

 

A few hours later, Paul leads them down a very steep incline to the bottom of a smaller hole, and there’s indeed a cave there, the ground soft with surprisingly dry moss.

Hugh takes off his backpack and sits down with a heavy sigh. He hugs his knees to his chest and buries his face in them. He can still hear Paul moving around quietly, popping open the tent.

“Hugh?” he asks softly.

Hugh makes a little grunt to indicate he’s listening, but he doesn’t look up.

“We need to go through our supplies, figure out how much food we have left. And I was also thinking… there are some trees not too far from here, so I was thinking I might be able to get some wood so we could make a fire.”

Hugh sits up straight in alarm. “No! Don’t leave me, Paul.”

“Okay. Hey, it’s okay. I just don’t think - well, I can’t keep the same heating going as last night, not when we’re short on food. I burned through a lot of power.” Paul sits down next to Hugh and squeezes his knee. “But it’s okay. I won’t leave.”

Hugh leans his shoulder against the cool wall of the cave and closes his eyes, trying to quieten the nervous thrumming through his body.

“I’m going to check our supplies, okay? Are you going to be alright?” Paul asks.

Hugh nods.

 

 

 

 

He falls into an irregular doze eventually, occasionally disturbed only by his heart suddenly jumping. Paul is sitting closer to the cave entrance, looking out, but everything else is completely quiet. The only sound is the wind catching in the winding chasms and caves of this area.

And eventually dreams start seeping into Hugh’s mind again. Wild, restless images of Paul, of the Klingons, of battles, of the wrecks, of that monolith intersperse and waver, making Hugh’s heart pound before he startles awake again. If Paul can tell, he doesn’t react.

Finally, Hugh can stay awake for a bit longer, brain apparently having gotten the sleep it needed for now. His eyes feel clearer and don’t fall shut anymore, so without moving from his slouch against the cave wall, he looks over and observes Paul.

Paul sits just as curled up as Hugh does, but his eyes are bright and awake and he’s watching… well, technically he’s just watching the other side of the small hole their cave is in, but it looks like he’s actually observing something. Who knows, maybe he has microscopes in his eyes and is looking at ants mating.

Speaking of which: are there even any creepy crawlies on Alterra?

Considering the size and ferocity of the sea creatures, Hugh really, really doesn’t want to know.

Instead, he looks at Paul. The light is falling at an odd angle, making his hair look almost completely white and glowing, and his skin incredibly pale. It’s a bit weird to look at. Usually, Paul doesn’t look this other. It’s not a bad look though.

What might he be thinking about?

Also suddenly it feels amazingly unlikely that Paul might’ve set up them getting separated. Not when he looks this innocent and sweet. Something about the light and the way he sits makes him look so small, so inexperienced, when at all other times he behaves like any other forty-ish year old man.

Actually, he’s probably thinking about his crush. Just like Hugh is thinking about his.

 

 

 

 

“We have about a week of food left,” Paul says later, when they’re about to eat a makeshift dinner. “I would suggest that you partially eat nutri bars as well but also the chocolate, so you get a modicum of nutritious elements as well as simply energy.”

Hugh smiles. “As a kid it was my dream to eat this much chocolate for dinner. And now I wish I wouldn’t have to.”

“Why did you want to do that as a child? Isn’t proper nutrition especially important during your primary time of development?”

“Sure. But proper nutrition is not something children enjoy.” Hugh gives Paul a quick smile and decides to finish off tonight’s part of a nutri bar first before getting started on the nice part. It’s not just children who enjoy eating chocolate for dinner.

However, it has the unfortunate aftereffect of making him feel warm and weary and full. Or maybe that’s fortunate.

“Hugh?”

“Mhm?”

“Remember when we watched the stars on the first wreck?”

Fuck, how could Hugh forget that?

“Of course I do. That was beautiful.”

“I thought so too. Do you think we could do that again? Just… taking the sleeping bags outside, maybe up on the plateau, and just… look at them?”

“Yeah,” Hugh breathes, afraid to disturb the moment. “Yeah, I’d love that, actually.”

So that’s what they do. Paul finds a patch of relatively dry grass that’s also reasonably soft, and as soon as Hugh has joined him on the sleeping bags, Paul curls into his side and Hugh plays at relaxation when really his heart is beating in his throat. If Paul notices - he probably does - then he doesn’t tell.

“Can you, um.” Hugh clears his throat and tries again. “Can you show me where Earth is, again?”

“Sure.” Paul takes Hugh’s hand, making him form a fist with his forefinger stretched out and points it. “It’s over there. Right on the tip of your finger. That’s your sun.” He squeezes Hugh’s hand gently and holds on to it.

Hugh catches the tip of Paul’s forefinger with his middle and ring finger and keeps it, silently asking Paul to not withdraw his hand.

He doesn’t.

“Would you go out and look at the night sky on Earth?” Paul asks, quietly, because his face is so close to Hugh’s once again that Hugh can even feel his breath on his skin.

“Not really,” he admits. “You can’t really see it in the city, because there’s so much light pollution.”

“And you don’t go camping.”

Hugh laughs. “No, I don’t, and after this I don’t think I’ll be much inclined.” He lets his arm fall again, lying it comfortably on his stomach. Paul doesn’t let go. Suddenly the night air is a lot warmer. “To be honest… there are probably a lot of things about my former lifestyle that I’ll want to change when - if I - we make it back.”

“For example?”

“Hmm, I always felt bad for seeing my family so rarely and being so little involved in their lives, especially since a lot of them live very close to each other, and… I should definitely change that. I want to see them more often, now that I really - I guess it takes experiencing it yourself to really know how finite and precious life is. I love them, I really do, I just need to act on it more often. I also want to work less. That’s… selfish, I guess, but I, I want to enjoy life. Live for myself and not just my job. And… this one is a bit more complicated, but once I’m stable again and seeing my therapist again and all that, I really, really want to get back into dating and, um, find someone, I guess, someone who’s for life, and… well, hah, I want kids, basically. And I want a partner to raise them with. Someone who feels like home. Who I love, who loves me, and who… well, a partner for life.”

“That sounds very nice. But… what about your crush?”

Hugh sighs. “We can’t control who we fall in love with, unfortunately. And since I know he’s not interested in me I guess I’ll just have to… fall out of love. Get it into my head that he doesn’t want me, and move on.”

Paul squeezes their joined hands. “My crush doesn’t want me either, I think. He’s got someone else as well. It’s… not easy.”

Hugh squeezes right back. “No, it’s not. It hurts, and you feel bad and lonely and unwanted and part of you wonders what you need to change so they’ll see that really you are the ideal boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

“I guess the important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t change for someone. Of course you should always strive to be kinder and more understanding and more helpful and more compassionate than you currently are, but you shouldn’t change core aspects of your personality, who you are, just for someone to like you that way. Lying to yourself and your partner, that’s… that’s not healthy.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

Hugh wiggles himself into a more comfortable position and sighs, thinking of all the crushes of his that never worked out, the sadness when he realised they weren’t interested in him. And he thinks of Paul, too, and the way his heart feels small and sad and cold and curled up in a corner now that he knows he’s been rejected.

“I am,” he says. “I… well, I’ve always been into guys, I was never confused, and so I had plenty of time to fall in love over and over and then… well, it doesn’t work out, most of the time. Even if they liked me back.”

“Why not? If you liked them, and they liked you, why didn’t it work out?”

Hugh turns away from the stars to catch Paul’s eyes. “A relationship needs a lot more than just liking each other. And… well, often characters just aren’t really compatible, you know. I’m a bit of a difficult person myself, and a lot of people categorically don’t like people in the medical field because we tend to talk about our patients at home, sometimes in very graphic detail, and a lot of people can’t stomach that. And then there are the work hours, of course, and being on call sometimes, and working weekends, and… yeah, a lot of people don’t like that. And then just… characters have to align, and morals, and all that, and even then sometimes it just doesn’t work out, no matter how attractive you find each other.”

“So what do you do without anyone - when you don’t have a partner?” Paul’s eyes are wide and blue and soft.

Hugh shrugs. “The same things I’d normally do, just no relationship things.”

“Is that bad?”

“That depends on how easily you get lonely, how well integrated socially you are, how much you crave a romantic relationship… Of course it’s not bad to be single, um, overall, but some people prefer it, some prefer being in a relationship.”

“What do you prefer?”

“At the moment I’d very much like to be in a relationship.”

“But your crush doesn’t like you back?” Hugh’s crush asks, looking very crushable-on and snuggled into Hugh’s side.

Hugh swallows against the lump in his throat. “No.”

“I guess that means we’ll have to crush on each other now,” Paul says, and why is Hugh reading hope into his voice and eyes when it’s really just a funny joke?

He giggles appropriately, squeezes Paul’s hand again and says, “Yeah, definitely. My condolences.”

Paul grins. “Why?”

“Well… like I said, I’m a difficult person.”

“Not in my experience. You’re very likeable. I don’t understand why your crush can’t see that. You’re sure he has eyes?”

“I’m going to sound conceited here, but I really hope that a guy who crushes on me can see past the fact he thinks I’m pretty, and likes me for my character too. Otherwise a relationship won’t really work, you know?”

“But mutual attraction -”

“Is also important, yes.” Hugh laughs. “You kind of do want to… you know, want to kiss your partner, or snuggle with them, orlook at them, or, er, well, have sex with them, if that’s something they want too. So, yeah, mutual attraction. It’s important.”

“I really want to kiss my crush.” Paul wriggles a little before settling down again with a sigh. “He’s got very nice lips. I don’t think he really… notices me as - well, he does notice me as a person, but not as a potential partner, you know? Do you - Hugh, do you think I could be a partner? Just… technically. Theoretically, of course.”

“Yeah! Yeah, you’re very - you’re a very careful and loving person, and you’re - for a guy with so little experience of anything, really, you’re surprisingly attuned to people’s inner lives. It’s a gift, really. Not many people have it.”

“Thank you!”

“And it would make you a good partner. Especially since you’re also a space heater, quite literally. Can’t think of a single reason why someone wouldn’t want that.”

“Maybe they - maybe if he runs hot. Maybe he wouldn’t like it then.”

“Maybe. But… I’m cold, very cold right now, actually, so I wish we could feed you enough so you could keep me warm again. Last night was very nice.” Maybe that’s too strong a hint, but Hugh really likes being cuddled by Paul.

“Maybe we should go back down into the cave, then.” Aw, Paul did not take the hint. Because Hugh would really like to have Paul lying almost on top of him, with his heater on just a little bit, wrapped in the sleeping bags and watching the stars until they fall asleep.

But Hugh acquiesces. “Alright. Let’s, then. I’m tired too, so.”

Paul lets go of his hand and sits up, pushing a few fingers through his hair. It’s remarkably human.

Hugh catches himself staring and looks away, sitting up himself.

“Do you think we need to keep watch? I don’t know whether there are any land predators here… Back in the forest, I felt like there was something there, stalking us, but… I haven’t felt it since.”

Paul eyes him quizzically. “There was nothing following us. Maybe that was the exhaustion, or the thick air, but I overheard the soldiers talking about that, too, and I scanned several times, both with the spectroscopic scanner and with my own scanning abilities, and there was nothing. If it makes you feel safer though, I’ll keep watch.”

“It would make me feel colder though, so…” Hugh trails off and throws Paul a hopeful glance.

“Alright. Come on, let’s get you into bed then.”


	5. XXIV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm. gay.

Hugh’s thighs and calves give happy sighs when finally they make it out of that odd green, ragged area, and they’re even happier at the surprisingly long stretch of pretty flat land before them… before the mountain.

Welp.

They still take a little break, Hugh stretches for a while and lets his joints pop, drinks some water. The land is very plain goes about as far as the eye can see, except for the mountain in front of them, so the wind is harsh and cold. Hugh gets out his scarf and hat again. They’re Starfleet-issued, and, like with so many things from the corporation, they’re not particularly good. Also the hat looks goofy. And Hugh would actually really like some mittens. And a thicker jacket.

He settles for flipping his own collar up, and then they set off again. Hugh keeps his head down against the wind, frequently blinking tears from his eyes, generally staying silent. Paul doesn’t seem too inclined to talk, either, and maybe once they settle down for the night Hugh will ask him what’s up, seeing how he’s looking rather pensive.

It would actually be really nice to be holding hands now.

Hugh sticks his into his jacket pockets instead and curls his fingers around themselves.

 

 

 

 

They reach the end of that stretch of plains towards the evening, the sun already glowing more red and casting the mountain in an impressive light, somehow making it look impossibly more imposing. It’s very sheer, too, with practically no outcroppings or vegetation. Paul did say there’s a way up, though, and Michael and Tyler made it up there too, and… well, the monolith really is the only direction they can go, the only landmark they have.

Hugh dreads what’ll come after, though. It’s not at all likely that they’ll be able to use that thing to make contact with base camp, at least in his opinion, seeing how when Michael and Tyler called from it, it made the connection frizzle and break up.

So what will they do once they’re done exploring that place to Paul’s liking?

The logical choice would be going back to camp, since that’s where Hugh is needed, very much so, but he wouldn’t find his way back. And then… well, he still doesn’t know where Paul’s loyalties lie, does he, not with how it had been Paul’s plan to go to the monolith all along, and with how conveniently the rest of their group suddenly disappeared, leaving the two of them stranded.

Maybe Paul knows about Hugh’s crush on him, and he’s using that to control Hugh.

Hugh throws Paul a proper glance and… no. Maybe that’s stupid, but Paul doesn’t seem underhanded enough to do something like that.

Hopefully.

 

 

 

 

This time they pop open their tent just at the base of the mountain, not at all shielded from the wind, but at least by walking around the front for a short while they’ve managed to find what must be the way up the mountain.

Hugh appraises the slope while Paul is trying to fortify their tent a little bit. It looks awfully artificial, like a man-made path that simply fell into disuse and has had to weather a few decades worth of seasons changing. A violent reminder that humans are not the first to have been to Alterra.

“What are you thinking about?” Paul steps next to him, craning his neck to look up the slope as far as he can see.

“The aliens, whoever they are, who built the monolith. We’re not the first people to have been here.”

Paul nods slowly. “It must be so weird for you. You never knew about aliens, and then suddenly a war breaks out against aliens, on another planet, and then you find out that there’s yet another race of aliens as well, somewhere.”

“I always knew we weren’t alone in the universe. There’s - there’s no chance - there never was a chance, really, that we’d be the only ones in the universe. That’s just incredibly arrogant to believe. But it’s weird to know it for sure.”

“Are you scared?”

Hugh shrugs and sticks his hands into his pockets again, partially out of the fear that he’ll want to hold Paul’s hand again. “Of the walk up the mountain tomorrow, yes.”

Paul laughs then , short and bright. “We’ll take all the time you need, Hugh.”

 

 

 

 

By ten a.m. the next day, Hugh stops for the tenth time since they started, supporting his body with his hands on his knees, and in between gasps for breath he invents at least ten new swears.

“Do you want me to take your backpack?” Paul asks, barely out of breath.

Hugh invents another two swears, this time directed at Paul, but stops himself in the last possible moment.

“No, thanks,” he grits out instead.

“Would you like to take a longer break?”

“I fucking guess.” Hugh throws off his backpack and plops himself down into the sand, lying down immediately. At least the wind that was just hindering walking with how strong it blew is now cooling him.

Paul sits down crosslegged next to him and hands him a water bottle, which Hugh takes gratefully.

“So,” he says, after having taken a few generous gulps. “How much further do we have to go up?”

Paul’s silence is damning.

“Aw, fuck me.”

“Would you… like for me to carry you?”

“No! Jesus! Wow, way to belittle a guy here, Paul. I’m not that out of shape, it’s just a really fucking steep mountain, and I’m just human, and I’m subsisting on a below-average diet.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just want to help you.”

Hugh lets his head fall back against the sand and closes his eyes. He should probably not allow his heart rate to go so far down, because they’ll have to get started again in a few minutes anyways, but he just really wants to ignore that for a few blissful moments.

Eventually he sits up again though and wipes the sand off his neck.

“Alright. Well, at least I’m not skipping leg day, it seems. Pass me the water again, please. Thanks.”

They need to be careful with the water too, he realises suddenly. Oh, god.

His legs protest when he gets up again, and his back protests when he picks up his backpack again, but there’s no way but this way, right up the mountain.

So they walk.

 

 

 

 

Around noon they take a break on a little plateau that has a whole bunch of the water vein trees sitting there, and while Paul taps one of them to pour water through their filters and replenish their stores, Hugh taps another one to take a makeshift shower in his underwear. Yeah, maybe that’s eco-terrorism, but he’s itching with dried sweat and old skin all over, since it’s been about a week since they left camp.

It feels like an eternity, he muses, scraping at his skin with his fingernails. An eternity since he’s slept in a bed, since there was food that at least had some sort of taste, since there were hot showers and roofs and walls and overall a more comfortable existence than out here, at the mercy of Mother Nature.

The fresh water feels good on his skin as well, even though he can only splash himself - it’s a tree, after all, not a shower. Even though he’d give a lot to have soap right now and really scrub off the dead cells and feel clean and refreshed as well.

Oh well, he should be grateful for the little things.

Like putting on his clothes again after he’s done with his cleanup, because it’s the wind is _cold_.

Paul casts him a smile. “Enjoyed your shower?”

“I left you some water in the… er. Tree. So if you want to take one too, go right ahead. Feels good.”

Paul gives the tree a curious glance. “I’ve… never showered before.”

“What?!” Hugh sputters.

“I don’t need to? I don’t really sweat, so… why would I? It seems so pointless. I understand that humans prefer to not smell, but I don’t have the necessary glands, so…”

“Go shower. Right now. It’ll be the worst shower you’ll ever take in the history of showers I’ll make you take, but until then it’ll also be the best shower you ever took.”

“Okay,” Paul says.

And strips.

Right there.

Hugh’s face is on fire.

He averts his eyes immediately, staring into the water bottle clasped between his hands in his lap, dimply aware of how cool the metal is when Paul is just merrily getting naked right in front of him.

Paul ditches his clothes and heads over to the trees and Hugh very much does not move a single muscle.

Why the fuck is Paul fucking naked. Who the fuck does that. Why the fuck would he just be naked. Without clothes. There’s no way that’s even remotely legal and… fine, maybe Hugh wants to peek. Just catch a glimpse of white legs and a pale butt and… other… body… parts…

The question is still whether Paul is, uh, ’fully functional’, so to speak.

Hugh’s cheeks are very, very hot now.

He’s not going to ask, of course - he’s got that much decency and self control and respect for Paul, but… he really wants to know.

It would also be interesting to know whether Paul can get hickeys. And whether Paul would enjoy them, would maybe whimper softly and press closer and curl his fingers into Hugh’s jacket and pull him closer.

Or whether Paul would just smack him because Hugh is getting too familiar.

Wow, thinking that is about as effective as a bucket of cold water.

It’s true though, Paul would very likely not appreciate that at all.

Hugh sighs to himself and puts away his water bottle to pick up Paul’s clothes and shake the sand out of them.

 

 

 

 

Paul is wearing a pretty smile when he’s dressed again.

“You were right,” he says. “Showering feels good. Or - splashing yourself with water. That’s what I did because that’s what you did, earlier, so… well, I hope I didn’t do it wrong.”

Paul watched him. That’s… odd.

“No, that’s the best we can do out here. But I promise you, when we’re back you’re going to have to take a proper shower. I’m not kidding when I say that they increased my productivity by at least ten percent.”

Paul’s smile turns soft. He sits down on the boulder next to Hugh’s, hands in a loose grasp on his knees. “What’s so special about it?”

“Warm. You get clean, which is always nice. It’s refreshing. Um… back on Earth there are lots of differently scented shampoos or body washes as well, so you can make yourself smell really nice, too. Or you could take baths. I don’t like them that much to get clean, but to relax and make yourself feel good, they’re great. My old apartment had a shower and a bathtub, and the tub had a whirlpool, and let me tell you, nothing feels better after a long hard day and a hard workout to go home, cook up some food, hop into the shower to get clean and then light some nice candles and maybe throw in a bath bomb and you just relax with your food in the tub. It’s heaven.”

“I… trust you’ll show me that as well when we get back to Earth?”

Hugh laughs. “Paul, whirlpools are the best invention of mankind _ever_. Hell yeah I will. Come on, we should get going though.”

Even the semi-shower must’ve been good for them, he notes - he feels way more refreshed and awake and more comfortable in his skin, even though the dirty uniform of course feels… well, dirty. And Paul seems to share that sentiment, going by the new glittering in his eyes and quirky smile.

On to the next part of climbing the mountain.

Hugh wraps his fingers around his backpack straps and starts walking.

 

 

 

 

Just as they’re off the plateau with its trees and the little overhang that would’ve protected them from the elements, it starts pouring rain. The wind is howling, tearing at them while they slog along up the slope, and the rain is harsh and cold.

They’re soaked within moments.

Maybe they’re clothes will get clean that way, Hugh thinks, ducks his head and keeps frantically blinking rain out of his eyes.

It’s the most miserable part of their walk yet, because the sand gets sticky and heavy under their feet, clinging to their boots, and they can barely look forward because of the blasting wind and rain.

’The only way out is up,’ a female voice repeats over and over in Hugh’s head, sounding slightly out of breath and very energetic. He doesn’t know what to connect it to, what she’s saying, why it’s important, but he holds on to that and keeps walking for who knows how long.

Water squelches in his shoes, making his feet rub against the fabric, and he knows he’ll probably have blisters later. Lifting his feet becomes a chore, so he just shuffles along, never properly stepping anymore, head down and shoulders turned inward, a feeble protection against the biting cold.

They don’t talk. Life is just very uncomfortable.

 

 

 

 

It must’ve been half an eternity when suddenly there’s something sticking out of the ground. Hugh’s feet catch and he falls, hands caught in his jacket pockets.

The sand sticks when he pushes himself up again. On his clothes, on his hands once he got them out, on his face and his neck.

Paul is there, then, helping him pull himself up onto weary legs. A new gust of rain has them both flinching, but at least it washes some of the sand off his skin.

“Look!” Paul calls. Hugh looks and squints against the rain in his eyes. “Another wreck!”

There is one indeed, white-grey hull almost invisible against the pouring rain and grey sky. It’s partially hanging off the edge, partially looking to have fused with the mountain, though that could be a trick of the perspective.

Hugh grabs Paul’s arm and drags him along. “Let’s find shelter there!”

They stumble their way through the deep sand and the metal debris, Hugh almost falling again several times before they make it to one of the sections where the wreck has burst open and they can squeeze between the outer and inner hull and hide from the elements. Hugh trips at the very last moment and almost face-plants into the inter-hull support beams.

There isn’t much space, but at least they’re safe from the worst of the wind and rain that are now beating down on the outer hull.

“Good idea,” Hugh pants, giving Paul a thumbs-up.

Paul smiles back at him. “It’s also already evening, so maybe we should stay here for the night. We could also scavenge this wreck for more supplies, and we’d definitely be protected from the elements.”

Hugh sets his backpack down and lets his neck pop, groaning softly. “Also a good idea. I don’t think we can go in this way though, so let’s maybe wait for the storm to pass and then find another way in here. You don’t think it’ll fall off the side of the mountain, do you?”

“No. A good four fifths of the wreck are on the mountain, only the rest is hanging over. It really should not tip over. We’re safe.”

“A refreshingly different situation.”

“We’ve always been safe, out here,” Paul says. “As long as we have enough supplies, that is.”

“Or as long as the Klingons don’t get us, or as long as we don’t fall off a cliff, or as long as we don’t get eaten by some creature… well, you get my point.”

Paul grins and ducks his head. “Alright, you have a point. Then… let me say you’re always safe as long as you’re with me. I promise I’ll keep you safe at whatever cost.”

Hugh’s cheeks burn and his stupid heart speeds up and something very, very stupid uncurls hopefully in his chest.

“Thank you,” he says, sounding like a very normal person who is normal and not in love at all. He also slaps Paul’s shoulder in very normal and platonic affection.

 

 

 

 

Of course the storm doesn’t lessen of its own accord, so eventually they pick up their backpacks again and make their way around the wreck, trying to find a way in. Hugh quietly hopes that this is a wreck with living quarters so he can steal some blankets, maybe even sleep in a bed.

“This might be a way in,” Paul calls, several meters ahead of Hugh, waving him into this hole in the hull.

The stabilisers are almost completely destroyed, some even looking melted, but that means there’s enough space to reach the inner hull, which has a service hatch right there. The mechanism is a little stuck, but after some good hard yanks it gives and with a small creak it opens onto a dark corridor.

Hugh peeks in and sees absolutely nothing. “Paul, could you hand me the flashlight?”

Paul does, their fingers brushing together for mere moments, and Hugh shines it down the corridor, surreptitiously making sure there are no monsters lurking there. Or… the bodies of unfortunate crew that didn’t make it after whatever the hell happened to all these wrecks.

Luckily, the corridor is completely empty, so Hugh throws first his backpack through the hatch and then himself more carefully.

“We should check the rooms first,” he says while Paul climbs through the hatch as well. “One, we might find supplies, especially food, and two, we might find blankets and beds.”

“Do you think any of the systems still work?”

Hugh shines the light around again, checking the light strips. They don’t look cracked, but it’s very unlikely they have power. “I doubt it. Unless we miraculously stumbled across a part that also has accessory batteries, and then we would still have to connect them to the main systems, and, uh.” Hugh scratches the back of his neck. “I’m not really tech-savy.”

“I am. I might be able to figure something out.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Honestly, I just really want to find some blankets and some supplies,” Hugh says. He watches Paul perform a quick scan. Maybe it’s a little weird to focus on that so much, but he likes the quick, quirky movements of Paul’s fingers. He does a lot of little gestures that are both odd and endearing. Hugh’s favourite might just be the way he sometimes rubs his thumbs over the webbing between his fingers.

Alright. Less gay thoughts.

Whew.

“There seem to be smaller rooms that way,” Paul says, eyeing the readout critically. “They might be living quarters, so we should check them for blankets. Come on.”

Hugh follows him.

Their footsteps fall softly into almost complete silence of the wreck. The double hull is thick enough to completely dampen the sound of the rain and wind, and the further they get from the little service hatch the quieter it is.

The silence makes the wreck seem bigger as well, almost like they’re exploring a huge cavern. Hugh’s vision is limited to the flashlight’s beam. He feels small against the darkness and stale air surrounding them and instinctively walks closer to Paul, who doesn’t move away.

This wreck is the biggest one yet, and the further they explore, the gladder Hugh is for Paul’s quiet company. It makes their steps feel less obtrusive, the silence and dark less oppressive; and also Paul would probably take out any spiders they’d find. Or whatever other monstrosities Alterra has that have too many legs and eyes to be legal.

The supplies in this wreck are meagre though, so they quickly return to the living quarters, picking one room at random. It’s slightly larger than the others, even larger than Hugh’s room back in base camp, and the sliding door mechanism is stuck, meaning they didn’t have to cut their way into the room.

Hugh props the flashlight up on the desk and drops his backpack at the foot end of the bed, looking around.

“What do you think?” he asks Paul. “A good place to spend the night?”

Paul takes off his backpack as well. “Are you happy to have a bed again?”

“You have no idea. Yes, I am. God. And with blankets, too. Actually…” Hugh eyes the storage compartments to the side of the bed. “Oh, this is going to feel mean but…” He heads over, tugging the handle and amazing himself when the closet opens with only the slight tug of a magnet. It’s full of clothes.

“You want new clothes,” Paul says very matter-of-factly.

“Clean ones, really. My skin is all itchy and oily, and I’d like to wear something clean. And… well, it’s not like whoever lived here still has any use for them.”

“Of course.” Paul takes the flashlight and shines over Hugh’s shoulder. “What style are you looking for in particular?”

Hugh laughs. “Warm and snuggly. I don’t really care. I don’t even know whether anything is in my size.” He pulls out a burgundy sweater, shaking it slightly so it unfolds. “This might actually fit. And it feels really nice.”

He throws the sweater on the bed and squats down to inspect a stack of jogging pants, pulling one out at random. They all smell a little musty, but not awful. And socks! There’s a whole armful of them, lying balled up and just waiting to be worn again.

Hugh tosses his finds on the bed and starts stripping off, so focused in his quest to finally wear clean comfortable clothing again that he’s not the least bit self-conscious about getting naked in front of Paul. He throws his jacket in the overall direction of the desk, then toes off his dirty worn boots and kicks them as far away from himself as possible. His feet flex and ache, so he makes sure to really stretch them for a few moments. Then his socks and shirt and pants go, skin raising goosebumps instantly, so he slips into the new clothes immediately and makes to sit cross-legged on the bed.

Paul smiles indulgently at him. “Do you feel better now?”

Hugh grins, making himself small in the slightly large shirt for maximum comfort. “Yeah. See, creature comforts.”

“A bed and clothes?”

“Yeah! You like drinking water, so let me wear some comfy clothes.”

“Alright.” Paul sets the flashlight back on the table, dipping the room in a more ambient light. “So… well. Good night then, I guess.”

“Ah. Uh. Paul? I’m… could you - close the door? It makes me really uneasy?”

“Why?”

“Well… something could come in…” Hugh is embarrassed as soon as he says it. “I know we’re alone here, but… I don’t know, I can’t sleep with the door open.”

“No problem.” Paul heads over and wedges his fingers in the little groove between the door and doorjamb and tugs.

And tugs.

The metal doesn’t budge even a little.

Eventually, Paul turns around to Hugh with a little frown. “Hugh, I don’t think it’s going to close. Are you sure you can’t sleep with it open?”

Hugh eyes the gaping black hole in the wall and bites his lips, giving Paul a slightly anguished look.

“Or what if I were to sleep with you? Like in the tent.”

“That might work,” Hugh replies, heart speeding up a little at the idea of sleeping with Paul in a proper bed.

“It might also be too cold for you otherwise.”

“Yeah, maybe. But… go grab some clean clothes as well, okay? It’s more comfortable for you that way. After all, you have to lie there for quite a few hours.”

Hugh leaves the bed to get some water while Paul changes, making sure to avert his eyes to give Paul some privacy. He also sets the flashlight on the bedside table, and finally he gets under the blankets. Paul picked a dark green shirt and in the brief moments where he crosses over to the bed as well it’s obvious that it’s an extremely good colour on him.

Then Paul slides in under the blanket and for a disorienting second Hugh wants to call him ’honey’ and pull him in for a kiss.

He restrains himself. Barely.

He does come to snuggle into Paul’s arms though, nuzzling his nose as close to Paul’s skin as he can get.

Paul reaches over and switches off the flashlight. Suddenly they’re wrapped in darkness and utter silence. Hugh snuggles closer.

He can also feel his muscles relaxing, feel himself melt into the mattress, and the musty smell doesn’t bother him anymore at all, nor does he think of the open door. Instead there’s Paul’s heartbeat, and his smell, and the warm safety of his arms.

Hugh stretches out properly and lets himself fall into sleep, safe and sound in Paul’s arms. That’s the one good thing about this hike: it’s cured his insomnia. No more endless thinking in circles or suddenly being wide awake despite needing to sleep, no restlessness. Just a bone-deep tiredness that makes him drift off immediately.

The last thing on his mind is Paul stripping down to take his tree shower.

 

 

 

 

He wakes sluggishly. Warm, almost hot, buried beneath blankets, neck in a position that only allows the shallowest breaths, nothing you could sustain when awake, and his body is aching like it’s begging him to remain asleep.

Something is vibrating.

Is it his phone? It might be his phone, maybe he played games or chatted with someone and fell asleep, and now it’s vibrating with a sweet, deep hum because he’s on call or something.

Hugh tightens his grip on the guy he’s hugging, adjusts his neck and -

Guy. Right. Oh, yes, it has been a while since he had some casual fun, so this is definitely nice, the humming and the gentle scratches on Hugh’s scalp. He’s just not used to that. Even though he could get there, very quickly, because it’s so, so nice.

Also no wonder he’s hurting all over, because of course a guy who gives him head scratches was going to be amazing in bed.

Hugh smiles to himself and lets his mind drift again.

He begins dipping in and out of sleeping, occasionally woken just by a change in pitch of the humming, and luckily it’s still completely dark, so his brain believes it’s resting time. Props to his companion for allowing him that.

 

 

 

 

Hugh must’ve fallen completely asleep again, because when he next wakes he’s pressed against the other guy’s side, still with his fingers on Hugh’s neck, but without humming this time.

“Good morning,” Paul says.

Paul. Right. Fuck.

Oh boy, no wonder Hugh was so ready to believe he’d brought someone home.

There is no home.

Right. He’s on Alterra - they’re on Alterra. There is no home, because they’re basically squatting in a wrecked spaceship, because they lost their entire group together with most supplies, and there might even still be a storm raging outside.

He wriggles into a more comfortable position with his head actually on the pillow rather than on Paul’s arm and sighs.

It could’ve been so nice.

“What’s wrong?” Paul asks.

Hugh sighs again. “I got confused and thought I was home. Realised that no, we’re squatting in a wrecked spaceship.”

Paul gives his scalp another nice scratch. “Do you often wake up with other people in your bed, then? Do you… did you have a boyfriend on Earth? I know you have a crush on someone now, but maybe that’s also because you can’t see your boyfriend at the moment.”

A boyfriend. Yeah, Hugh _wishes_.

“No, not really. I think I told you before… finding someone who works with you, that’s hard, and dating is very… to be honest, I find it frustrating, constantly going out with people and trying this one and that one. It’s very time and energy consuming and, well. I would like a partner though, so, well, I guess I have to keep trying. But it’s been a few years, definitely, and… I’m definitely ready to be in a relationship again, and ideally one that’s - that lasts, you know?”

“Something for life,” Paul says softly.

“Yeah.” Hugh pushes himself up on his elbows. Of course he can’t see Paul, but things are definitely too intimate now. Huddling for warmth in a badly isolated tent is one thing, but cuddling in a bed is definitely too much. Especially seeing how Hugh is crushing badly and talking about wanting a parter for life.

Unfortunately, Paul doesn’t make any move to get up or switch on the light.

“So how do you find people - men to date?”

“Dating apps.” Hugh shrugs. “Work colleagues is usually a bad idea, but sometimes they invite you to parties where you meet people or something, or you could of course start a new hobby, join a group for that, meet people there, I don’t know. I never dated much, so, hah, I wouldn’t know.”

“How do you expect to meet someone then?”

“Ugh, I know. You know, if you didn’t have a crush on some guy - and, and me on one too, of course - I’d date you. You seem decent, and not like you’d just date me for my body, or because I’m latinx.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know, people are just… people, you know? They’re weird.” Ugh, awkward. Hugh kind of wants to leave the bed and get on the road again to escape this weird intimacy that’s not - that shouldn’t be allowed, not when his heart is already bleeding that badly. But he also really wants to stay and snuggle and be warm and comfortable and happy.

Except that’s not what he resolved to do, so he sits up properly, warm blanket sliding off his shoulders and exposing him to the cool room.

“We should get going,” he says. “We should reach the monolith tonight, hopefully, and then maybe we’ll actually be able to send a distress signal… or at least make a new plan.”

“It’s actually not that far from here.” Paul’s voice is incredibly soft. Hugh just wants to fall into it. “It’s less than half a day to walk, so I was thinking we should maybe spend the remaining time here, where there’s a bed and you can rest, and then we get going in a few hours. I know there isn’t a lot of food left, either, but at least you could rest somewhere comfortable.”

“Oh,” Hugh breathes.

“I know you want to get going as soon as possible so everything can happen more quickly and you can return to your medbay more quickly to help people again, but at the moment there isn’t more we can do.”

“You’re right. It just still feels bad.”

Paul shuffles around and then the light clicks on. Hugh groans and squints against the sudden assault on his eyeballs.

“Sorry. But, hey, maybe you should go lie down again and try to rest, and I would go outside, and if it’s still raining I would try to wash our clothes.”

“Oh! Oh, you don’t have to!”

Paul snickers. “Hugh, no offence, but I have a functioning sense of smell.”

“Ouch. You’re right, of course. But at least let me help you.”

“No. You need to rest. You’re awfully close to developing stress fractures in your bones, and I can’t protect you from that in any other way than giving you as much rest as possible.”

“You don’t have to do my laundry.”

“Do I have to tie you to the bed for you to do what I say when you know I’m right?”

Hugh sighs and gives up. “Alright.”

“Good.” Paul slips out of bed. “I’m going to leave the flashlight here, but I want you to rest. Eyes closed, Hugh.”

Hugh curls up again obediently. He watches Paul until he’s left the room, and then his eyes fall shut again naturally. And so what if his head ends up more on Paul’s pillow than on his own?


	6. XXV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe :)

Hugh misses the warm bed horribly once they get started again, because it’s raining outside. And not just cats and dogs - more like a whole zoo. Unfortunately the wreck didn’t have rain coats stocked somewhere, and their army jackets only hold off a modicum of water, and they sure as hell don’t have hoods.

Paul is leading the way. Hugh follows blindly, both unable and unwilling to pay much attention to the dreary surroundings.

Mostly the path is mud, or sand; sometimes there are plants, rock outcroppings, even some crystals sticking up straight out of the ground. And even though Paul is carrying their tent and most of their supplies (he insisted on it, of course), Hugh’s backpack is getting heavier and heavier. He keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t complain though.

And it keeps pouring and pouring and pouring and water is dripping everywhere and Hugh hides out somewhere in his mind where things are better. The bed last night stays a distant but warm memory.

They take a little break under an overhang. It doesn’t shield them at all, since they’re still wet and dripping, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

“Did you see the skeletons too?” Paul asks too conversationally.

Hugh chokes on his water. “Did I see the what now?”

“We passed several of them. Mostly ribs and vertebrae, but a few skulls buried in the sand as well. They must’ve been magnificent creatures, with skulls that big. I’m wondering why there were no leg bones though. The sea creatures seem to be mostly snake-like in form, but considering the terrain I’d be surprised if the land creatures didn’t have legs.”

“ _Land creatures?!_ ”

“I would protect you.”

“Oh, sure you would, against some kind of monsters that just want to eat my face!”

Paul frowns. “Going by the size of those skulls I’m sure they’d do a lot more than just eating your face.”

Hugh’s stomach drops, making him feel more than just vaguely uneasy. “That’s great.”

“Like I said, I’ll protect you. And I doubt there are even any creatures around anymore. The skulls must’ve been here a long time.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Paul takes Hugh’s elbow and squeezes it gently. “I’ve got you, Hugh. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“You’re not going to be much help against a _monster.”_

Paul purses his lips and looks away. “Sorry for scaring you. I doubt there are any creatures of significance on land. All the exploring parties before the war recorded barely any fauna. They would’ve encountered… things.”

“Well, that’s great. Because they didn’t even cover all the planet,” Hugh bites out bitterly.

Paul sighs and hangs his head. “I’m really sorry. I don’t want to freak you out.”

For some reason there are tears starting to burn in Hugh’s eyes. He tries to blink them away, but to little avail.

“Come here,” Paul says and pulls him into a tight hug.

Hugh stumbles but presses into the embrace, head falling on Paul’s wet shoulder to drown out the world outside. There’s little actual warmth to be found, but Hugh’s heart calms down anyways, simply because it’s Paul holding him. As much as he knows Paul wouldn’t be of much help in a fight (neither would Hugh, really), his arms feel safe. Like nothing can get Hugh there.

In all fairness, Paul has saved him from a creature before. Or two, really.

Hugh exhales hotly and squeezes his eyes tighter to push the memory of his near death experience away as far as he can. Instead he focuses on the life in Paul’s body. How real he feels. How good he feels. How steady and safe and calm.

Paul’s fingers wander to the base of Hugh’s skull and he squeezes Hugh’s neck again. It’s a cold and wet touch, technically, but it’s still good in its own way.

How weird would it be if Hugh asked to get hugged more often?

He sighs and withdraws, keeping his face pressed against the side of Paul’s neck for a few precious, shiny seconds before drawing away further.

Paul is smiling. “Come on. Let’s get going again. I don’t think you want to be in the rain any more than I do, so let’s get to the monolith.”

 

 

 

 

They slog through the wet sand and mud again, and now that their clothes have given way to the water completely it seems to be their boots’ turn, because Hugh’s toes are getting pretty wet and also pretty cold. He manages to keep his head up though, because the wind isn’t blowing rain directly into his face anymore. Also because he doesn’t want to watch himself submerging his feet into wet ground anymore.

That also means he notices their surroundings now. Notably the cliff they’re scaling on their rather narrow path… and the occasional fragment of what can’t be anything but bone.

The first time Hugh saw actual bone was during his anatomy class in med school, when they dissected corpses. It had been alienating at first, but then just insanely fascinating, a bit more than seemed right. Then it had become completely ordinary, much to his family’s dismay, because it meant Hugh lost all sense of what’s appropriate to discuss over dinner. He’d never really regained his sense of appropriateness, which hadn’t made it easier to find partners from other fields than the medical.

But he’d never been scared of bones. They’re just there, after all, in your body, or sometimes not in your body, and in those cases you need help.

Here, however, the bones are scary, knee-weakening promises of what this planet is hiding.

Looking at them is only marginally better than looking towards the cliff, but at least the bones are already dead and they themselves are not dangerous in any way, while the cliff definitely is.

Oh, Hugh wishes he could hold Paul’s hand now.

For a crazy moment he imagines holding Paul’s hand and letting himself be led, eyes closed, trusting Paul completely. On the one hand, that’s very appealing. On the other hand it makes his stomach lurch and his legs tremble at the thought of the abyss way too close to him.

 

 

 

 

“Look!” Paul calls out, stopping in his tracks.

Hugh almost bumps into him, managing to stop himself just barely before that. He follows Paul’s arm to see where he’s pointing and - oh.

The monolith is gigantic, towering above them with a good last piece of the mountain still above it. It’s slate grey with weird green symbols glowing all over its surface; blocky, like a kid built it in Minecraft, but with absolutely massive wires connecting various other boxes to the monolith itself. And then there’s also a large bright green diamond shaped vertical … it looks like… it looks like a pond that’s vertical.

Hugh blinks the rain out of his eyes, not sure whether the water cascading down from the sky has gotten worse or whether he’s just a baby.

But also there’s nothing more than a structure. It’s impressive, sure, with a purpose Hugh can’t even begin to understand, probably, but it’s also nothing else, nothing… well, nothing _special_. It’s just some blocks. Alien blocks, sure, but isn’t it supposed to make him feel something? An accomplishment of having gotten this far, or fear, or understanding, or awe? Or is him feeling nothing just testimony to how numb he’s become?

“It’s pretty impressive,” he says instead. “I wonder what it’s purpose is?”

Paul throws him a glance. “Maybe communication? I wonder what that green diamond is. It looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“It looks like a teleportation portal from a video game.”

“I wouldn’t know what those look like, then. Do you think I can interact with it?” Paul makes a short, jerky movement towards the vertical pool before stopping himself. “On further thought, it might compromise my electronics. Let’s get inside instead and hide from the rain, alright?”

Hugh smiles, not even trying to hide his relief. “I’d like that, yes.”

Paul starts walking again then, the slope becoming far steeper. Hugh is panting within moments, ready to give up and take a break if not for the promise of getting away from the cutting wind and the rain and the fucking cliff right next to him.

The climb doesn’t end. He gets down on all fours because his boots keep slipping in the sand, slicing open his fingers on some rocks and what might be teeth, as long as he doesn’t look too close it’s fine, fog closing in on his vision but his lungs are already burning. Paul is faster than him, of fucking course, and Hugh zones in on Paul’s - well, his butt, technically, as a fixed point, something to guide him. It’s sexist. Or something. It’s also pretty. If his lungs weren’t on fire and his throat dry even though the air is 90% water and his backpack is weighing him down and he can’t go on, he can’t go on, focussing on Paul’s butt or his boots or something, thinking of his mom, like she’s going to be waiting for him at the end of this climb, and that almost gives him something like strength and he goes on, wet ground shifting and slipping dangerously under his limbs, as long as he goes on it’ll be fine, keep climbing, not minding the burn in his fingers from the cuts.

“Hey, are you alright?” Paul’s voice comes through the mist, not quite managing to puncture it, but it makes Hugh stop while the world keeps spinning, the tips of Paul’s boots the only fixed points.

Paul’s face shows up in front of Hugh’s, oddly out of focus, but he’s cupping Hugh’s jaw and that’s… good… somewhere far away in a world where it’s not going black probably because either Hugh’s eyes are closing or he is indeed falling off the cliff, incredibly softly into a dry warm wet cold blackness.

 

 

 

 

“Hugh! Hugh!”

The world is wet and cold and grittily real and Hugh’s eyes don’t open properly and there’s water pouring on his face and he sputters, things coming in and out of focus while he starts blinking again.

Paul. There’s Paul.

Hugh pushes himself up to sit, wet sand sticking to him everywhere, and he feels dizzy almost immediately again. There are hands on his shoulders, steadying him.

“Hey, careful. I don’t want you to pass out again.” Paul helps him sit up properly and then withdraws again, looking at Hugh with shockingly much concern. “Are you alright?”

Hugh drags a hand over his face, belatedly realising he now has sand all over his face. Pawing at it with his still sandy hand only makes it worse, so he stops.

“What happened?” he asks instead.

“You fainted. I didn’t - I’m so sorry I made you climb all this. I didn’t think -”

“Ssh, it’s alright.” Hugh pulls his knees up, becoming more alert every second. “Let’s just get inside and away from the rain, okay?”

“Alright. Here, let me help you.” Paul pulls Hugh up, taking most of his weight when his legs prove to be a little less stable than expected. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Hand me my backpack?”

But Paul just shakes his head and picks it up with far more ease than seems fair. “No, you should take it easy at least for another minute. You’re the only doctor, remember? You’re worth quite a lot.”

“I guess.” Hugh’s feet drag through the sand and he keeps his head down again, trying to keep the thoughts inside rather than bursting out with them like that. Less self doubt, less whining, more action and more helpfulness, that had been his MO, after all. Yet so far he’s failed horribly. Maybe he deserves that for trying to make Paul like him. But also some doubts can never - will never completely go away. Like why the team deserted them.

Hugh purses his lips, but he’s already lost the battle against his tongue. “Why do you think Landry and the others deserted us?” he bursts out, still keeping his head down to not see Paul’s reaction, to make it seem more like idle wondering than complaints and whining.

Paul doesn’t answer.

They keep crossing over the sand, coming closer to the monolith, which is even more colossal up close. Hugh has little interest in that, though, because there’s an angular archway opening into it, promising safe haven. No matter who those aliens were, they clearly valued having a roof, which is something Hugh can really connect with.

“I don’t know,” Paul says suddenly, tearing Hugh away from wondering idly about the aliens. “I thought - see, it would make sense to get rid of me, I guess, but definitely not you. You’re what keeps the squadron together, you - you’re their _doctor_ , you’re the one keeping them all healthy. Soldiers are replaceable, I guess, which is why there are so many drone soldiers, but doctors… you have to do so much more than just operate on people and bandage wounds. That whole emotional factor… you’re doing that so well, and Lorca… he isn’t stupid. He’s many things, but he’s not stupid. He knows he needs you. So I don’t think Landry was ordered to leave us behind.”

“I wonder why Michael went along with it.” The bitterness in Hugh’s stomach at that thought is bleeding through quite obviously, at least to him, and it makes him miss Paul’s comment about the emotional component of healing people. When it does register though, he hides a very schoolboyish grin of sheer giddiness.

“She didn’t like me.” They reach the archway and step through, finally safe from the rain, with their feet on very solid if slippery ground again. “I could see her wanting to get rid of me, but not of you. She likes you and she’s far too smart to even consider getting rid of the camp’s only doctor.” Paul throws Hugh a sidelong glance. “Unless there’s something I don’t know about. You two did talk quite a lot together, after all.”

Hugh freezes. “What? No! Paul, no, I promise I would never - and neither would Michael! It’s not like that, she’s not like that! She knows how much you mean to me, and she would never do something like this. She’s way too honest for that.”

“But then your original question remains. Why?”

Hugh shakes his head. “I can only assume Lorca has some kind of ulterior motives. Maybe he knows something about the monolith we don’t know and he intended for us to end up here.”

“Did he say anything to you about that?”

“No.” Hugh looks around the cavernous corridor, trying to remember whether that’s really the truth, but… yeah, Lorca hadn’t said anything to him, at least nothing he could interpret in a way that would mean he should bring something back from the monolith. “No, really, nothing. And he doesn’t trust me, so it’s odd he would entrust something like this to me. I don’t know. But… come on, let’s get a little deeper inside this place to get away from the wind. At least we know nothing is living in here, according to Michael and Tyler. Also give me back my backpack, I can carry it again.”

Paul does, and they continue on.

The place is strange, definitely… well, definitely alien. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

But there are a few recurring design ides - the archways, the green glowing patterns on the wall, little cubes to break up the design, all very angular.

Their steps echo.

“I wonder who these people were,” Paul says into the semi darkness. “Why they built this place. Why they came to this planet, built this thing and then left again. What happened to them. They must obviously have been a very technologically advanced species, because this place is built from materials harder than any material known to mankind, the atoms packed so densely it shouldn’t be possible with the understanding of physics and chemistry humanity has, but quite obviously it’s still possible. But there are no signs of them ever having been here on the rest of the planet, are there? Or if there are, they just haven’t been discovered, meaning there can’t have been any civilisation hubs.”

“Maybe they lived underground.” Hugh’s voice echoes as well, and he doesn’t like it one bit. This place is far too big for his liking, far too likely to have something hidden in it, but so far all they’re passing are various chambers with absolutely nothing in them other than short staircases making them go down a few feet before going up again, all illuminated with the same green glow.

There’s water in here too, Hugh notices, sloshing around their ankles the further they get into the facility. Weird how it got in here, but he’s not about to question the aliens’ architecture.

“Wasn’t this place scanned for underground deposits?”

“It was. They found minerals and caverns and all kinds of water pockets, but nothing that had any appearance of a civilisation.” Hugh shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He chuckles without actual joy. “It’s way above my pay grade, and it’s scaring me. I don’t know why, but I need less aliens in my life, not more.”

Paul reaches out and slots their fingers together. Like it’s perfectly normal.

Hugh’s stomach does a kick flip.

He almost slips and falls. But Paul’s grip is steady.

Blood rushes in Hugh’s ears and he squeezes Paul’s hand back, heart rate skyrocketing but suddenly he’s barely able to keep the smile off his face. He’s holding Paul’s hand. Paul is holding his hand.

“Do you actually get paid?” Paul asks, the natural question to ask after you start holding a guy’s hand.

They’re not walking that closely together that it would really be that intimate, but he’s still holding Hugh’s hand. He’s holding Hugh’s hand. With his own hand.

“Uh.” Hugh swallows and tries to get his mind back on track. “I actually don’t know. Probably not. But, um, I’m sure they’ll tell me something about how it’ll look good on my CV if I ever get off this rock. I’m pretty sure I’m essentially out of work and homeless, seeing how I’m not renting an apartment on Earth anymore, and the hall of residence I was living in got pretty flattened to the ground, and a military camp isn’t accepted as a proper place of residence.”

“That’s bad though, isn’t it? Because when you get back to Earth again, you’ll need somewhere to stay.”

Hugh laughs and squeezes Paul’s hand again. Something about this is making him feel almost free, less burdened and burned out. “Um, I was planning on dumping myself on my parents for some R&R.”

“And then?”

“And then I’ll go look for a job again, preferably closer to my family, and then I’ll get an apartment again.”

“So you still want to work as a doctor?”

“I do, yes. It’s my calling. It might be hard and it might feel fruitless sometimes, but it’s still - it’s where I’m right, you know? It’s where I belong. I might even get into trauma surgery, or ER, or become an emergency doctor, because it can hardly be more stressful than what I’m doing here, and I’d have better equipment. I wasn’t always a pulmonologist, after all, and, um, all the department hopping I did should come in useful some day.”

Paul nods but doesn’t reply.

They go down another very short set of stairs, water sloshing again. At least it’s clear water, with nothing nasty living inside that could bite them. It still soaks Hugh’s feet, but he’s pretty numb to all that now. After all, when was the last time he felt dry?

And then there’s a dead end. The corridor just ends, and instead there’s a - perfectly square - hole in the ground.

“Uh,” Hugh says.

Paul takes a step forward to take a peek.

The hole looks like it’s filled with green glitter. Or not glitter exactly, but green beams of light.

Paul cocks his head and aims the scanner at it.

“It’s nothing,” he announces. “Ions, but not from any material we know, nor can the scanner tell us what it’s doing here. But there’s more of the monolith below us, with spaces where we should be able to walk, so I think it’s an elevator.”

“There’s no button to call it though,” Hugh points out, because the walls are bare save for the glowing symbols. They’re not even in any way decipherable or don’t seem to be holding any meaning, being merely decorations and sources of light.

Paul lets go of Hugh’s hand. “Trust me,” he says, steps forward and falls down the hole.

“Paul!” Hugh calls out, rushing forward, stopping himself only centimetres before the hole.

Looking down it is nauseating, but there’s Paul, floating on the green strips of light.

He lands gently. Hugh’s heart is still beating wildly.

“You can come on down,” Paul calls, voice reflecting off the walls. “It’s like an elevator. You won’t fall, I promise.”

Hugh swallows, resisting the urge to fidget nervously. His stomach feels very very bad.

Actually, his stomach has been having a lot more emotions lately than Hugh himself has.

“I don’t -” he tries, also trying to look down and look at Paul but failing miserably. “I can’t -” He shakes his head against the vertigo and steps back, squeezing his eyes shut.

There’s a plop and Paul lands on the floor in front of Hugh again.

“You’re afraid of heights,” he says. It’s not a question.

Hugh nods and avoids looking at the hole in the floor.

“Would it be better if I told you my legs could easily take that drop, even with the added weight of an adult human and two backpacks? Come on.” His hold on Hugh doesn’t allow argument, so Hugh holds on to Paul as well and then the ground vanishes under his feet and they fall.

They actually don’t fall. There’s nothing solid under Hugh’s feet, but there’s also no air rushing past or that lurching feeling of falling. Instead his skin is prickling like it does when you’re just getting cold and the first goosebumps are cropping up. Hugh still keeps his eyes squeezed closed and doesn’t release his grip on Paul. He doesn’t trust this alien technology one bit.

They land with a soft _flump_ , knees bending automatically, and Paul steps them out of the elevator shaft.

“You’re fine,” he says softly, releasing his grip on Hugh, letting him take his own step backwards. “See? It was alright?”

“Fuck.” Hugh rubs a hand over his face.

“Come on.” Paul takes his hand again and they turn from the elevator.

There’s another doorway. Hugh follows Paul, exhaustion making him far more complacent than he’d like, but there isn’t much fight left in him.

This room is more of a hall, ceiling far higher than anything has been before, with an equally deep rectangular hole in the ground. Relatively narrow ways lead around it to another doorway, and the big hole is open to the outside, wind sweeping puddles of water over the hole’s floor. There’s moss and small plants building their own little ecosystem around… well, around a skeleton.

Hugh swallows and grips Paul’s hand more tightly while they’re both looking down into the excavation. This thing must’ve been massive, and completely snake-like with two - no, probably four crab-like grabbing arms in front of it’s short menacing skull with double eye sockets and large bone growths both on top and below it, like crests on reptiles.

“Good news,” Paul says with a slight smile. “This confirms my assumptions - all the skeletons we’ve seen so far were fish, because this looks exactly like the thing that attacked you when you went swimming. Meaning there are no land predators and what actually happened was actually probably a massive geological event that left large parts of the planet suddenly above water level, meaning all these creatures died naturally.”

Hugh smiles back, still feeling shaky. “Right.”

“It’s fascinating, really. This planet must have an extraordinary inner life if events like that can just happen. I wonder how old it is.”

Hugh just nods and takes a step back from the ledge. He’s far too exhausted for this.

“It’s still an awful place.”

“I know. Come on, let’s go through that doorway and explore there, and then we’ll rest for today.”

Hugh lets himself be led, mind blank save for the monotony of setting one foot after the other.

 

 

 

 

There’s nothing past that other doorway either, just a whole bunch of ramps leading up higher and higher, but not to anywhere. It’s also dark, the green glow so faint you can barely see where you’re stepping, so they call it a day and return to the place before the elevator. They choose a higher pedestal so they don’t put their tent in the ankle-deep water, but they still pop it open already and sit down. While Paul checks their supplies again, Hugh more or less curls up around his bottle of water, leans his chin on his knees and stares at the wall.

It’s rare that his mind feels so empty, but he’s just so exhausted, all the way down to his bones, beyond being tired. And he’s scared too, of course, but the exhaustion leaves his mind so cottony that he can’t think a single thought.

He goes to sleep eventually. The last thing he remembers is managing to put on the clothes he stole from the ship and then Paul joins his sleeping bag and then there’s the blissful black of sleep enveloping him, letting him forget the world.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up and is in pain. His muscles have tensed and bunched up after sleeping on the ground, he’s partially too hot and his toes are too cold, his joints ache and his stomach is begging for food but his eyes almost refuse to open, like his brain is begging his body to go back to sleep to get some rest.

Of course that’s not how it works.

Hugh worms around to look at Paul. He’s asleep again. Odd, really, seeing how Paul said he doesn’t need sleep, but this is the third? Maybe fourth? Night where he does sleep. It’s really cute, and for a moment Hugh forgets his aching body in favour of watching Paul breathe ever-so-softly, lips open slightly, eyelashes feathered over his cheekbones.

Hugh’s chest aches with fondness for this man. He just really wants to hug Paul close, to snuggle on top of him and wake him with soft kisses, promise him he’ll be forever his, let themselves just be happy somewhere.

Instead he crawls out of the sleeping bag to go empty his bladder.

When he comes back, Paul is still asleep. Hugh’s back hurts too much for him to want to go back to sleep, so he just sits next to Paul and looks at him. The sharp jawbone. Sharp nose. Thin pink lips. The way he curls his hands up to form a makeshift pillow. The creases of skin in his neck. Like this it’s even less believable that Paul is an android and not human at all, that he was made rather than grew into his body. That there isn’t squishy flesh and organs under his skin but wires and tritanium bones and elastika muscles and a rubber heart.

Or whatever you make synthetic hearts out of. Hugh actually doesn’t know. For humans you use stem cells, obviously, to build a heart skeleton which you can then supply with myocytes and finally implant. But Paul has no stem cells of his own.

He doesn’t even have DNA. Somehow that feels like the weirdest part about all of this.

Hugh rubs his freezing and wet toes and just keeps staring at Paul’s face. It’s a good thing they decided to camp on this little plateau because more water has run into the facility overnight, making the pools in the deeper sections of floor now go to above Hugh’s ankles. And while the water is still clear and there are no macroscopic nasties floating around (and it’s better not to think of the microscopic nasties that are most definitely there), it’s also cold as ice. And the rain hasn’t stopped the least bit. If anything, it has gotten stronger. And fog is creeping up too now, or maybe the clouds are getting lower, but visibility was very bad, and Hugh only tried to get a few meters away from the entrance to the facility. And the thunderstorm that’s hanging above them.

It’s a scary thought, but they might be imprisoned here.

Then Paul wakes up and Hugh forgets scary thoughts. Paul wakes up like he was switched on. His eyes open wide and blue and he sits up.

Then he blinks and rubs sleep out of his eyes and Hugh’s heart feels too soft to keep beating.

“Good morning.” God, his voice is even rough from sleep.

Hugh smiles back, too widely probably, but Paul is adorable and Hugh is in love and for just a moment he forgot all his worries. “Hi. Good morning.”

Paul smiles as well, more softly and sleepily, before worming out of the sleeping bag, crawling close to Hugh and stopping just moments before his face.

Hugh catches himself before he falls too far forward and forces a kiss. Paul hugs him and rests his head on Hugh’s shoulder for just a moment.

“I dreamt something had happened to you,” Paul says, voice low and confidential. “I don’t know what, just something bad. I was… worried, and sad and, um, I’m just happy to see you, to see you’re not - you’re alright.”

“I didn’t know you slept. Or dreamt.” It’s a stupid thing to say.

Paul smiles and scoots back. “It started quite recently. It was disorienting at first, but I really enjoy it now.”

Hugh’s stomach chooses that moment to growl at him and any probability of the conversation taking a turn to be deeper pops like a soap bubble because Paul’s eyes narrow.

“Hugh, when is the last time you had food?”

“Uh.” Oh wow, he’s really hungry, now that Paul mentions it. Starving, even. “Lunch yesterday? I don’t know, I didn’t keep track, and then we explored this place yesterday and I was just so tired I didn’t even think of food.”

“You need to eat! Now!”

 

 

 

 

So after Paul has more or less forced a full meal at Hugh, only eating a little bit himself, they fold up the sleeping bag to sit on it in front of their tent and look around the room. Paul plays with the scanner some more, but there seems to be nothing to discover, going by how quickly Paul discards it again.

“It’s annoying,” he announces. “And disappointing. I really thought there would be something here, you know, something… anything. But there’s just nothing. It’s like this facility was built just to be built, you know.”

“Maybe it’s a monument.” Hugh has his arms around his knees again, with his chin pillowed on them. “Just to say, ’hey, we were here’.”

“What about that hole though, with the skeleton? And why go through all the trouble of building something without even - without making it be for posterity, you know? For as long as humans were sapient, they had to document they had been somewhere. Cave paintings, monuments, inscriptions on stone, statues, burying their dead in a fancy manner, books, graffiti too, if you will.”

“The aliens aren’t human though. Or maybe all these sigils on the walls mean something and we just can’t decipher it.”

“It’s always the same symbol though. And why build all this interior when it’s not going to be used at all?”

“I don’t know.” Hugh still feels tired, and more than just a little unwilling to discuss this. “I just don’t know, Paul.”

“And what about the thing outside, the one that glows green?” Paul’s voice gets louder, more agitated, echoing in the room. “What’s that for, and why did they build it if not to say they’ve been here! So why doesn’t it say anything! Why does the last room with all the ramps not glow like every other place?! What’s up with the room with the massive hole?!”

“I don’t know!” Hugh feels the agitation too now. “Fuck, Paul, I don’t know! Isn’t this place already scary enough without more freaky stuff? I mean - our nuclear clocks don’t even work! The scanner isn’t reporting anything! And the room is flooding with water, the weather outside is getting worse and worse and we’re almost out of food! There are a lot more pressing issues than why some aliens didn’t leave their Twitter handle written on the walls. I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”

The scanner clatters on the ground when Paul gets up. “I’m going to check outside.” His voice sounds stony.

And then he’s off, splashing through the water and leaving Hugh alone.

Hugh lets himself fall backwards, head bumping against one of the wires holding the tent upright, ground cold under his back, and he sighs into the sudden emptiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen guys, i don't really want to do that but it honestly feels like i'm screaming into the void with this story. i know there are quite a few people who read this fic, but i get so little feedback and so little response that it's really starting to not be worth all the stress of writing five thousand words per week *just for this fic*. i just want to know what you guys are thinking, whether sunrises is getting awful and you actually hate it, or whether it's just boring you or wherever else i went wrong so i can hopefully fix it. i put a lot of work and a lot of thought and a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this fic, and i'd just really love a response that actually tells me something. kudos are nice and all, but they're a one time thing while i sit down hours and hours every week to write more.
> 
> and i know there is a small handful of regular commentators! and i love you guys! but i wish i'd also hear from the silent readers, because i need your input too!   
> so... please comment. that's all i ask.


	7. XXVIa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i talked about this on my tumblr earlier last week (before tumblr went to hell), but i wanted to make it official. from now on, i'm going to be posting half chapters only, but keep the sunday update schedule. i just honestly can't write 5k each week, not with all the stuff that's going on and not with how absolutely dead quiet the fandom is atm. i'm really sorry about that, but i don't want the story to have to go on an indefinite hiatus again, so... 
> 
>  
> 
> also, i'll be slowly abandoning my tumblr and will be primarily on [dreamwidth](http://www.shroom-boi.dreamwidth.org) under the same username, and once i have my pillowfort account i'll be there too. and ofc i'll always be here!
> 
>  
> 
> now, about this chapter... there's quite a bit of realising they're going to starve to death happening, for the first two thirds (ish), so... y e a hhhhh

Paul doesn’t mention their little fight when he comes back, thoroughly dripping wet. He strips, hanging the wet clothes over some cubic outcroppings from the wall, and changes into his pyjamas, then occupies himself with his scanner.

Hugh masks his disappointment and curls back into a ball to keep warm. He shouldn’t have snapped at Paul like that, he knows. There’s no justification, either. He should apologise and make it up to him. Instead he stays curled into his ball, thinking about nothing in particular.

“We have about two days worth of food left,” Paul says after a while. “Let’s hope the weather changes until then so we can go out and forage. I put out our filters, so we should have enough water, and we can conserve energy by not being too active, like animals that hibernate. After that… well, we’ll have to think of something.”

They’re going to starve, Hugh realises with sudden clarity. That’s all that’s going to happen. They’re going to starve to death up here, and maybe a few eternities later the next explorers will come and find his bones and Paul’s - what would Paul look like, starved? Probably in the same position, looking just the way he does now, only shut down, skin more pallid but not a hair out of place.

Hugh shudders and draws his knees further towards himself.

They keep sitting in silence after that.

Hugh takes a nap for lunch and some swallows of water. He should probably get off his meds again, he realises while trying to drift off. Taking them on an empty stomach usually upset it and he’d end up vomiting them out. That doesn’t help anyone.

He dreams of Paul eating him alive. For some reason it doesn’t hurt.

So he apologies when he wakes up again. Tries to show interest in the monolith, in what little Paul found out. Tries to contribute theories.

Paul smiles and forgives him. The conversation stays choppy regardless.

At least they still snuggle up for the night.

 

 

 

 

The next morning gets them about half a breakfast each, and they mostly stay in the same spot, leaning against each other, occasionally changing the way they sit. When they get the filtered water inside together they realise that the weather hasn’t changed at all.

“If it keeps raining like that, we might even drown in here,” Paul says while they’re carrying the water through now already sole-deep water in the entrance corridor. “We’ll also have to move our tent, preferably now. I don’t want to have the rain back us in a corner, but the only way out is up, at the moment.”

“What do we do if we run out of up to go?”

Paul thinks for a moment. “The room with the ramps will always be safe, because there’s that big hole with the opening to outside before that, and it’s right in the side of the cliff, so unless it rains so much that the whole mountain is under water, we’d be safe there.”

Until we starve, Hugh thinks.

They move their tent, and then they wait again. Hugh dozes a little, but he’s not even really tired anymore. Spinning idle fancies it is, then, but even with those Hugh keeps walking in circles because they’re all either about Paul or about his family. It’s not helped by being so hungry he can’t even think about food, which of course means that that’s all he does.

They go to sleep after a whole day of doing nothing but staring at the wall. Funny how he still insists on sleeping inside the tent, like it makes any difference.

Paul decides to stay sitting where he is right now, to conserve energy, so Hugh curls up alone for the first time in a long time

 

 

 

 

Hugh can’t tell whether it even really is morning, but he wakes up all the same, crawls out of the sleeping bag but stays in his pyjamas, only opting to sit next to Paul instead.

They eat a very meagre breakfast, but that’s the last of their food.

Then they wait. And then they go to sleep again. And then they wake up again but this time they don’t eat breakfast. And they go to sleep again but this time on an empty belly.

Then they wake up again with an even more empty belly. Water doesn’t do much to fill them up, so Hugh leans against Paul again and spends some quality time staring at the wall.

They move further, a bit higher that evening because where they had been camping out started to get flooded. Hugh feels weirdly floaty.

He sleeps, wondering whether that’s how he’ll go.

 

 

 

 

Of course it’s not. The next morning finds their current camping place already dangerously close to the waterline.

     “If the rain doesn’t stop soon, this whole place will be under water,” Hugh says grimly in lieu of a good morning. “The good news: we can only move deeper into this thing. Deeper as in lower. You know, where the water goes. Are you still as desperate to see this place?”

Paul sighs. “I don’t see how the rain is my fault.”

     “Sorry. I’m being an ass,” Hugh admits, sitting down next to Paul on the sleeping bag. “But I’m starving. You know, in a movie, I’d now be wondering what you taste like. Luckily for you, and unluckily for me, you don’t have meat on you.”

Paul smiles slightly, but still doesn’t move. He’s conserving energy big time, so he practically hasn’t moved for the past two days, since they ran out of food, save to move their campsite.

Hugh leans against him.

     “Good for you is also that you can’t feel faint from hunger. You know, the annoying thing about all this will be that if we get out of here, I’ll have lost my carefully cultivated muscles. Not that there’s anyone I could impress with them here, but… it’s a nice thought, you know? Getting off this rock and… you know, looking good enough that I can date someone immediately.”

     “Why would you want to date someone immediately? Shouldn’t you rather want to find someone who shares similar interests?”

     “Maybe I want to get laid.”

     “Why?”

     “’Cause it’s fun. ‘Cause it makes you feel alive. ‘Cause I haven’t gotten laid in ages. ‘Cause I’m missing that kind of human touch.”

That does make Paul turn towards him.

A tiny wave of rainwater splashes against the pedestal they’re sitting on. If the rain stays as bad, they might have to relocate during the night.

     “I could provide that for you. If it’s essential to your wellbeing.”

Hugh sighs and closes his eyes, getting more comfortable on Paul’s shoulder.

     “I don’t think so.”

     “Why not? I might not be able to download the required mannerisms, but I’m sure you could explain them to me.”

     “Exactly that’s why you couldn’t. It’s not ‘mannerisms’, Paul, it’s - it’s more of a want. Like… you want to please your partner, make them feel good. Those are the ‘mannerisms’ you need. And it doesn’t work if - it’s not a service, you know. Plus, right now? It would burn way too many calories, and I can’t afford that.”

     “Okay,” Paul replies.

And that’s that.

 

 

They do have to move the tent a bit further upwards later. It’s not far, just up one of the ramps, but they don’t come with a handrail, and Hugh stumbles while walking up. He needs food. 

     “How long can a human survive without food?” Paul asks once they’re settled down again and Hugh is snuggled up against him again. Not because Paul is warm - he made sure that he has practically no heat output - but at least Paul is soft and feels alive.

     “Hm. Depends. Couple days, maybe.”

     “We should’ve rationed better.”

     “Should’ve this, could’ve that. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

     “Do we still have a beacon?”

That’s an odd question, but Hugh feels a little too cotton-y to think about why it’s so odd.

     “Why?” he asks instead.

     “If I’m able to position one at the entrance, I might be able to go outside without losing sight of the monolith through the rain, because I’d be able to watch the beacon’s blips and navigate back that way. I might be able to find something to eat.”

     “Okay,” Hugh says.

 

 

 

 

Paul does just that the next morning or evening, or noon. It’s hard to tell the time in here, especially without their nuclear clocks working.

Hugh spends the time Paul is away lying down and thinking of home. He’s not hungry anymore; he knows that that’s bad, but there isn’t much he can do about that, so why bother worrying about it? If Paul doesn’t find food, they’re screwed anyways. Home, however, is a nice thought.

He thinks about baby Hugh; about the way his mom looks at his dads, about Constanza’s postcards, about waking up to happy noise in the house, about suddenly bursting out into song together. About Camilla’s horse. About the little lavender wands his abuela would braid to let them play witch and wizard with as kids.

There are so many happy thoughts, or dreams, and it seems a bit dumb that the world doesn’t want all that. They could all just be nice to each other and there would be no need for war or pain or death, and everyone could get hugs.

The further Hugh slides off into dreamland, the less he feels the permeating wet cold of the monolith, and the more he feels his home again. Or his parents’ place. He did have an apartment in San Francisco, after all. But his parents’ place was always… warm. Even in the winter when they had such huge problems with the heating constantly breaking, it had still been so warm.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up toasty. Really, really toasty. Sunday morning with French croissants and hot chocolate in bed-toasty. Someone is breathing shallowly into his ear, arms wrapped around Hugh’s torso, like a personalised big spoon for him.

Hugh is also wrapped in the sleeping bag, his shoes are removed, and there’s the smell of burned wood and grilled fish in the air.

Wait.

Grilled fish?

     “Good morning, Hugh.” Paul’s voice is very close Hugh’s ear, sending pleasant shivers down his spine when Paul’s breath fans over the ear’s shell. “You’re awake, so maybe you’d like some fish? I’m not much of a cook, but I managed to find some edibles, and I don’t think I charred them too much.”

They feast on grilled fish, edible plants and even some edible tree bark until they’re both too full to move, and then Hugh more or less flops against Paul’s side, already deep in his food coma.

“Where did all this come from?” Hugh asks in a surprising moment of clarity. “Fish… and plants and stuff. What happened to the weather outside?”

“It’s all sunny again.” Paul rubs circles over Hugh’s back. “And I went through the - it’s a portal. The green glowing vertical pond thing outside. It’s - it’s incredible. It’s a portal into a sort of aquarium, and there are all sorts of fish down there, and… another skeleton as well, but it’s like twice the size of the skeletons we’ve seen so far. And the whole aquarium is inside another alien facility, this one so deep underneath the ground it’s in a volcanic area. I… Hugh, I wouldn’t have made it far without food, but something - I knew this thing was a portal, somehow. I don’t know how, but I knew I could go through there. And I did. I was surprised to be in water, but luckily I didn’t breathe in, and there were just fish down there, all kinds, even predators, but they were all very docile, and…” He coughs. “Um. Well. The first prey fish I could find, I grabbed it, and… well. I needed energy somehow.”

Hugh snickers. And then he imagines Paul treading water, grabbing some poor unsuspecting fish and shoving it down his mouth and he laughs some more. It hurts his full stomach, but it feels good.

“You just grabbed a fish and _ate_ it?!”

“Well.” Paul sounds miffed. “Yes. I was hungry. Anyways, if you want to, I’d like to show you that place. It’s incredibly interesting. I wish my scanner wasn’t broken though, but it broke the second I came through that portal, I think. They are supposed to be waterproof, right?”

Suddenly, Hugh is alert again. “Wait, you’re saying you went through the portal and it broke the scanner?”

“I think so, yes. The last thing it was trying to scan was the portal itself, but the scan broke off after thirty percent.”

“But you’re alright?” Hugh sits up on his own and turns to look at Paul. “Because… look, I don’t want to say it like that, but you’re just as electronic as that thing. Um. Obviously you’re far more advanced and far more - you - you’re more human and definitely not - you’re not a computer, that’s not what I meant to say! I just mean - I was… I’m - that’s - I - please take care of yourself,” he ends, already trying to evade Paul’s eyes.

To his surprise, Paul giggles. “I know you don’t think of me like that, Hugh. And don’t worry, if there had been any danger, I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. But… I knew it was going to be alright. I don’t know how I knew, but… it almost felt like I’d been there before. Or like I was… I don’t want to say ’destined’ because I’m still not human, but like I was meant to go through that portal and find that place. It was so massive, Hugh, you can’t even imagine. And the, this volcanic outside… there were creatures there. Fish. These red rays and some very small prey fish and even larger… they looked like some cross between eels and seals, and then, I don’t know, I didn’t see it, but there was something big in there too. Massive. I could hear it roaring, shaking the foundations of that place. And inside the facility there were other portals too, probably to other places, and I, I just want to explore all of them, you know? I feel like I’m uncovering something here, finding out something about this place that I already knew, like I’m unlocking my own knowledge, if that makes sense.”

“But what if it’s dangerous? Paul, please. Don’t go there again. You don’t know - maybe, what if you’re wrong about you being able to take that? What if you break just like the scanner? Or worse, what if you get attacked by something.”

But Paul shakes his head. “They all lead to safe areas, the other portals. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I was sent here. I think - I think this might be my purpose, to be here and to uncover the planet’s secret. What if it helps us win the war? What if - Hugh, what if there’s a meaning behind all these places? What if it’s my purpose? You said you’re a doctor because it’s your calling. What if… what if this is _my_ calling?”

“It’s still dangerous though. Paul… please.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than you think.”

Hugh sighs and drops the topic. Maybe Paul will forget. “Would you mind if I went to have another nap?” he asks instead.

“Oh, sure! I -” Paul looks down on his hands. “Do you, um, do you need me to warm you?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, that would be nice, thank you.”

They move back into the tent, snuggling together, Hugh pillowing his head on Paul’s chest once again, succumbing to sleep far sooner than he thought he would.


	8. XXVIb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

“Okay, what’s the plan?” Paul asks after their nap.

Hugh is sipping his water, trying to think. “As much as I hate to admit it, maybe going through that portal would make sense. Maybe that other facility has some - I don’t know, but it might be more helpful than this one.”

Paul nods slowly. “You understand that the portal will lead us under water? So, um, you can’t breathe there. I can function on way less oxygen, so, um, if you don’t make it to the surface until you run out of breath, I can, um, supply you.”

He’s going to give Hugh mouth-to-mouth.

Alright, well that’s not making Hugh’s heart beat faster at all.

“At least our backpacks are waterproof,” he says, trying to divert from the fact that technically Paul will kiss him.

“Yes. It’s a bit weird, isn’t it, that our backpacks and tents are completely waterproof, and our uniforms and boots are very much not. And neither are they warm. I’m really wondering what Starfleet must’ve thought when designing that.”

Hugh shrugs. “Maybe they didn’t care.”

Paul reaches over to squeeze Hugh’s knee. “The more I get to know you, the less I can believe there are humans who just don’t care.”

Hugh’s heart is beating wildly. Him. The more Paul gets to know _him._ Not his crush, not anybody else. Hugh.

“Well, there’s Lorca.”

Paul laughs and withdraws again. “Good point. I take it back. Come on, let’s go and get that behind us.”

“And here I’d just gotten used to feeling dry again,” Hugh mock-complains, getting up easily. Funny how his muscles feel a lot stronger now that he got food. They also dried or smoked or whatever some of the leftover fish, and while it’s a lot less tasty and very chewy, it’s still leagues better than nothing.

They have to wade through the pools of water anyways on their way out, so they’re easily wet up to mid-thigh. Paul takes Hugh’s hand again though, so Hugh would happily submerge himself completely in the freezing water, if only to have his hand held.

The uneasy feeling in his gut grows once they catch sight of the portal though. It’s one thing to talk about going through something like that and being completely submerged in water, and a wholly different challenge to actually do it.

His palm gets sweaty.

“Hey, I’ve got you,” Paul says with a quick smile. “Even if you accidentally breathe in some water - I’ll get you out immediately. And there’s nothing dangerous in there. Don’t worry about it.”

“Right.” Hugh squeezes Paul’s hand and takes a deep breath. “Um, I’ve got an idea though. Maybe we should leave what’s left of our electronic equipment that’s still functioning here, because we’ll come back this way, right? And it’s unlikely that it’ll be stolen, so it would at least still function.”

“Good thinking.”

So they leave Hugh’s scanner, the PADDS, the multitools, the flashlights and the little beacon in a small pile next to the portal’s platform.

Hugh picks up his backpack again and steps onto the platform next to Paul, taking his hand again and holding it securely.

“It’ll be fine,” Paul says again.

Hugh nods mutely and follows him.

“Does it hurt?” he asks stupidly.

“No. Don’t worry.”

Hugh still swallows thickly and closes his eyes.

“Take a deep breath and hold it,” Paul reminds him.

“Right.” Hugh does.

They take the last step and walk into the portal.

Everything turns green.

It’s the same prickling sensation of the ionic elevator, and Paul is safely next to him, smiling at him.

Just as Hugh considers that it might actually be fine, the portal spits them out. Into water. They’re floating a few metres off the ground. Hugh begins windmilling his arms immediately, air immediately getting short, panic making his chest tighter while his wide eyes try to find the nearest way to the surface.

Paul’s lips press on his and part, hand securely on Hugh’s jaw.

Hugh breathes in, almost immediately calmed. Paul withdraws again and gives him another smile, then points forward. Hugh follows his finger a bit confusedly until his eyes arrive at the massive skeleton. Or is it really a skeleton? It’s mostly a carapace, with huge insect-like forelegs and a colossal, stocky horned head.

There are fish swimming around as well, but Paul was right, they’re docile. One elongated shark-like fish comes close by them, obviously a predator, but it takes no note of the two intruders.

Hugh almost breathes in relief.

Paul taps his arm until he’s got Hugh’s attention, then points up, making a swimming motion. Hugh nods and lets go of him, starting to follow him. Swimming with a backpack and heavy clothes is surprisingly difficult. Air leaves him far sooner than he’d like, but Paul is there, not-kissing him again, then keeping a hand on the back of Hugh’s jacket, pulling him up further as well.

The basin is incredibly deep, Hugh realises, and there’s a platform floating just a few meters under the surface.

When they breach, he almost breathes in water from the splash they made, coughing for a moment.

“Are you alright?” Paul asks, once again immaculately not out of breath.

Hugh chokes out the last water and makes for the edge. “I’m fine.”

Paul has to push him so he manages to get out of the water. Of course. And of course Paul climbs out on his own.

And he’s grinning. Great.

“Come on, let me show you this place!” He takes Hugh’s hand again and tugs him along excitedly, up a ramp and then into a relatively low but wide tunnel. “It’s so incredible. They built so much space, and this whole aquarium down there. Clearly they were studying something, and I think they were studying the animal that the skeleton belonged to, but I don’t understand why, and why they built this facility so deep into the ground… and why they built the other facility. Don’t you find it exciting?”

“Uh. Sure?”

Paul gives him an indulgent smile but wisely chooses not to comment. Instead, he makes a grand sweeping gesture to invite Hugh into the next hall, which is absolutely gargantuan. “Welcome to the centre hall,” he says. “This is the centre of this facility, and basically also the grand entrance. It looks like it’s some kind of museum, but I’m not sure what any of the things in these display cases are.”

There are eight display cases to either side of the room, all holding some kind of object.

“And the thing in the middle… I’m not sure, but if you go near it it moves down to show you these green crystals sitting on top. Oh and - come down there.” He pulls Hugh in a straight line to a downward sloping corridor. It ends with what seems to be a window looking out into hell. “This is the entrance.”

“What the fuck. Is that - is that _lava_?!”

“I think so, yes. Isn’t it incredible? There are still animals living down there! And… just listen for a moment.”

They stand in silence. Hugh isn’t sure what exactly he’s listening to - oh. That.

It’s a deep roar, like there’s a dinosaur outside this facility.

Hugh immediately steps closer to Paul and holds his hand more tightly.

“That’s the thing out there,” Paul says with awe. “Isn’t it incredible? Let’s go closer - this is a kind of forcefield, by the way, but the water outside is really hot.”

“Actually.” Hugh fidgets. “Do we really have to be closer? I don’t want to get eaten by a monster, and I also don’t want to swim in boiling water.”

“It’s fine. Come on.” Paul tugs on his hand again and Hugh comes.

They peek outside the force field, Hugh making sure all his appendages are very safely and happily inside, where there’s air and not boiling water, thank you very much.

“Look at this,” Paul whispers. “A whole ecosystem, so far below, and in such temperatures. I wonder… I would like to swim out there, explore this place, try to see whether I can find the creature that’s making that… ooh. Wow. Hugh, are you seeing this?”

Hugh is. Oh, Hugh is very much seeing this. His brain just doesn’t comprehend what the fuck he’s seeing.

Alright. It’s big. It’s actually extremely big. Probably the size of a plane. It has massive forearms with webbed finger-esque appendages. The back has something like eight tentacles. The face looks like a dinosaur. It also has glowing bulbs along the side of its body. It’s also roaring very loudly.

It’s also kind of more or less slightly heading a bit directly towards them.

Fast.

It’s also spitting fucking FIRE.

Hugh yelps and yanks Paul back, stumbling over his own feet in his terror, because apparently the fire can penetrate the forcefield, ending in flaming balls of rock that’s on fire and burning just in front of their feet.

“That’s so fucking cool,” Paul whispers, eyes wide.

“No,” Hugh mutters, grabbing Paul’s arm and just pulling. Anything to get away from that abomination. “No. Nope. Not happening. Come on, we’re going anywhere but there.”

Paul comes willingly, but he’s still trying to crane his head backwards until Hugh has them safely in the big room again where he drops Paul’s hand like it personally spit the fire at him.

“Paul, what the fuck was that! What was that thing!”

“It was so cool. I wish I could go outside and look at it.”

“No. We’re leaving this place. Right now. We’re going back to the monolith, we’re going to figure out a way home, and we’re never going to go anywhere near a fire breathing monster again. Paul, I don’t care that you think it’s awesome, because that thing is going to eat you like the olive in a giant fiery martini bathtub. We’re going back. Right now.”

Paul sighs and drops his head. “At least let me look around for a while longer. Don’t you find it interesting?”

“Not when there’s a _dragon_ outside!”

“Only ten minutes. Then I’ll come back and we can leave again, alright?”

Paul may sound dejected but Hugh actually doesn’t care right now.

“Ten minutes. Not a second longer. Don’t you dare leave this place, either. No matter what kind of portal you find. Unless it’s leading to Candyland, we’re going the way we came.”

“Alright.”

Hugh takes his backpack off and sits down on one of the small cubes around the big green crystal holder, resting his face in his hands.

God, he’s going to need a whole army of therapists if he ever gets off this rock.

For a bizarre moment he actually imagines that, a room full of therapists talking over each other to give him advice, all simultaneously offering him various concepts to help, all encouraging him to talk about his feelings, and Hugh snickers to himself before rubbing over his face, groaning softly. There’s a fucking deep sea monster spitting molten rock outside. What the fuck. When did his life turn into a bad movie?

 

 

 

 

One thoroughly scary dive through progressively deeper water to a very far away portal spits them out safe and sound on the platform in sweet air again. Hugh turns around to Paul immediately.

“We’re not going back down there. Ever,” he says. “No matter what. Never. You hear me?”

Paul sighs. “Alright.”

“Good. Now, you’ve got any idea which direction camp is in?”

“Well… “ Paul trails off, still hanging his head. “I might need the stars to find out about that. I think I could guide us by them, but it would require for us to travel at night, when it’s cold.”

“Better than sleep at night though, maybe. The nights are pretty bright here, and we’ve got flashlights, so we should be alright. And the movement will keep us warm more effectively than me burning through my energy storage, since we’re still not doing that amazing on food.”

Hugh nods slowly. He’s not at all enjoying the idea of hiking in the dark, but Paul has a point.

“Maybe we should start the descent now already though. I don’t want to climb down this thing in the dark.”

 

 

 

 

It feels weird to be on the move again. Hugh had gotten so used to the long wait inside the monolith, and now to pass all the places he didn’t even see properly before because it was raining so badly… it’s weird. Paul is also not holding his hand again, and that doesn’t make Hugh feel lonely exactly, but… Alright. It does make him feel lonely. It had felt as though Paul’s crush had stopped existing while they were on that mountain and in that facility, and if they now descend the mountain again the guy will come back and ruin everything.

On a completely different note, it’s also disconcerting to now notice the bones lying around. Not human and most likely not Klingon in origin, but that doesn’t help much.

They take a short break around the evening, but then they keep going, Paul always in front of Hugh. They’re also not talking much.

Hugh wishes he knew how to break the silence.

Instead he admires the way the sunset casts Paul into a fiery glow. It softens his jaw, too. Usually Hugh wouldn’t like that, but this time it looks nice.

Once the sun is gone, it gets cold very quickly. Hugh bunches his shoulders up and tries to ignore it until it’s so cutting he can’t ignore it anymore, and then he just tries to pull his shoulders up further and shivers.

They both pick up the pace, physical exertion making it easier to keep warm, and Hugh pushes his fingers into his jacket pockets and endures.

It must be a good hour or two after midnight when they finally stop, Paul having found a suitable cave, little more than a hole in the wall where they’ll be safe from the wind and some of the cold. They pop open the tent, eat some smoked fish in silence and go to sleep.

At least Paul still snuggles with him, Hugh thinks just before he completely dozes off.

 

 

 

 

They wake in the late afternoon when the sun is already casting its red glow over the world again. Hugh gets out first, stretching and admiring the landscape before them. He never really looked to either side during the ascent, but now…

There’s a sea of trees the way they came, bordering on some of the red grass which ends in a rocky cliff, sometimes leading down to small beaches. And the the ocean. It’s relatively calm, surprisingly, but the sun gives it a dark reddish colour with almost no blue.

Blood, Hugh thinks. Then he shakes his head because he doesn’t actually want to imagine a sea of blood that’s probably just about the size of the sea of blood he already has on his hands.

A harsh breeze whips around him and he shivers.

Every now and then he gets into these moods, like now, where he’s not struggling per se but the world is hidden behind a heavy black blanket that makes everything seem bleak and pointless and he doesn’t know why he’s even still putting in any effort. This seems to be one of these days. Or nights.

Of course, his mental health is also going to tank once they’re practically only awake in complete darkness and cold. So he would really like for it to not already start now. Back home he was really able to fight back - work out, or read a book, or eat some chocolate, hang out with friends, go for a walk, dance to some music. Here it feels like they’re walking back into the maw of the beast, whether it’s Lorca or the Klingons.

Paul’s sudden sullen silence doesn’t help, either; nor does the knowledge that they’re getting closer to his crush. It’s like their happy little bubble is so close to bursting all of a sudden, and Hugh doesn’t know what he did to bring it to the brink. Was it getting so mad in that deep sea facility?But how had that not terrified Paul? And how does he not understand that that was terrifying?

Hugh is torn out of his thoughts by Paul crawling out of the tent, stretching and yawning.

“Good morning,” he says, turning around.

Paul gives him a quick smile. “Or evening.”

“Yeah.”

An unspoken something hangs between them like a thundercloud.

Hugh watches while Paul gets a sip of water himself and then something to eat. They’ll still have to be careful with their supplies, but once they’re in the forest area again there should be quite a few fruit-bearing trees. Hugh even saw some on their way up.

But they still need to talk.

“Paul?” Hugh asks carefully. “Um, I get the feeling that you’re angry at me. Maybe I’m reading too much into things - I do that on occasion, but… you’re not talking much, you’re walking in front of me all the time, kind of like you’re wanting to block me off. And… um, please tell me what I did so I can… so I can change my behaviour, if it was offensive.”

Paul looks up with a frown. “You didn’t do anything. I’m just… I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh.”

“And it’s… complicated. I can’t find the right words, not yet, so I didn’t talk to you about it. It’s concerning feelings, and I find that words are usually difficult and not enough to express feelings.”

“Oh!” Hugh laughs a little. “Yes, they are. That’s in the nature of things. I’m sorry about that. Um. If I can help you at all…”

“I think it’s something I have to work out on my own. But thank you. For the offer. I might come back to you with that.”

“Sure.”

 

 

 

 

They keep walking then. They pass wrecks and skeletons and some water trees and endless, endless cliffs. Once the sun is down, they can’t see the ocean anymore, so it also doesn’t look like blood again, which is good, and their flashlights illuminate the way very well.

Paul is still quiet, but this time the silence is more organic. It’s good.

They actually make it all the way down the mountain and a good bit into the piece of land that’s mottled with caves and caverns and crevices. This time around it’s scarier, because at night all holes are deeper, but they make it about halfway until they stop for the day.

 

 

 

 

The next evening they finish crossing through what Hugh privately calls hole-land and end up in the forest again, this time a bit more to the left, since this time they’re navigating with the stars and not with the big mountain. Paul spends some time just looking at the sky shortly after sundown, and somehow that’s how he knows where to go. Hugh doesn’t question it because what does he know of using the stars as a guide? Nothing, that’s right.

The forest relieves them of the cutting wind, luckily, and while the air there is still very damp, that also means it has retained more heat. Now that their pace is a bit more leisurely than the one Landry set the damp air is actually bearable.

“It’s probably going to be snuggly warm to sleep here during the day,” Hugh says in a desperate effort to make conversation. Paul has been super monosyllabic the past few days, and Hugh misses their talks. But even this time he only gets a short, sweet smile and then Paul turns away again, continuing on his path. It’s disappointing.

 

 

 

 

Around their lunch break they find some of the fruit-bearing trees. They mainly find them because while most other trees glow blue, the trees and their fruits glow a very warm orange.

They both eat their fill, juice and seeds running over their chins and fingers, because these things are really sweet and quite crunchy with lots and lots of juice.

Hugh ends up taking a short nap against the trunk of one of the trees because he may have eaten a little too much to be able to move.

Then they continue on.

There’s nothing new to see in the forest, and still not even birds insects to be heard. Just them and their footsteps and the eerie blue glow of the trees.

Hugh falls into a bit of a doze, trotting behind Paul. He’s still cold, but walking like this bores his mind beyond compare, so he drifts off somewhere far away once again, practically sleeping with his eyes open.

So it shouldn’t really be a surprise that he runs into Paul when Paul stops far too suddenly.

Paul shushes him. “Do you hear that?”

Hugh blinks his eyes awake again and strains his ears. There are noises somewhere to the front left of them, shuffling, talk, definitely a larger group of advanced beings.

Klingons. They could be Klingons.

Hugh’s heart drops. He breaks out in cold sweat. This is not how he’s supposed to die. But it is how he’s going to die.

“I think they’re humans,” Paul whispers. “Be quiet for a moment. Stop breathing so loudly.”

Hugh holds his breath and desperately wishes they’ll go undiscovered, that he can go home and see his parents again and move into a pretty apartment and do his job and die of old age.

Paul throws him a wild grin, grabs his arm and starts walking towards the noise. And before Hugh can so much as think of protesting, they breach the last row of trees to find themselves in a clearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))))))))))
> 
> please leave me a comment if you enjoyed this fic so far... and/or if you don't want it to be klingons :P
> 
> oh i'm also [on pillowfort](http://www.pillowfort.io/shroom-boi) now! didn't post anything yet but i'll rectify that very soon! fuck tumblr and all that!


	9. XXVIIa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and welcome to "i'm really sorry i forgot to update but i legitimately forgot bc i was busy" with nerdqueenenterprise hosting
> 
> err. yeah. 'm sorry... i had the christmasing and visiting of great grandmas
> 
> this chapter has mentions of death pretty early on, and then in the fourth paragraph there's relatively graphic injuries and fighting, so watch out for that
> 
> anyways, i hope y'all had a nice christmas if you celebrate or if not you at least had holidays :p once again, i'm really sorry sdfkjsdf i'll keep this posting schedule though! every sunday!   
> thank you for your patience! <3

“Hugh?!”

Something is dropped and suddenly Hugh is enveloped in a fierce hug. A lot of things have been happening very suddenly in the past minute or so, but he knows hugs aren’t dangerous.

He hugs back. The hugger is squeezing air out of his lungs but that’s kind of okay.

Michael lets go of him and beams. “We thought you were dead! What happened?”

“M-Michael?”

It’s their group. It’s Michael and Landry and all the others.

Hugh goes in for another hug. He doesn’t have words and tears are scratching the back of his throat, so he buries his face in her shoulder and holds on.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” she whispers.

“Me too.” It’s all he can say at the moment.

“It was awful. It was so awful. We all woke up one morning and there was - “ She pulls away to look at him. Her eyes already speak volumes. “Do you remember that thing Tyler and I saw? The - the warping thing? Something like that had gotten into camp, and it had killed the night watch. You two - your tent was gone. It was just gone. No signs of struggle or of it being dragged somewhere. And that thing was - I don’t know, it had just kind of stabbed Stanson and it was half lying on him, half bent over him, making these awful robotic mechanical sounds.”

Hugh’s heart clenches in both pity and fear. “Did you kill the thing?”

“Yeah, but… it was too late for Stanson, of course. But - what happened to you?”

That’s a good question. Hugh frowns and tries to think. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. We, um, we woke up, and you were gone. There was no sign of anything but our tent and the stuff we’d taken into it. I can’t say whether it was the same place… to be honest, most places here look exactly the same. And… I don’t know, we just - well, we knew we’d have to continue on somehow, so that’s what we did.”

“Yeah, you look awful.” That at least puts a semblance of a smile on Michael’s face. “Like… you look horrible. When is the last time you ate?”

Hugh huffs. “Today, but… it’s a long story. Commander.” He nods at Landry, who nods back.

“It’s good to have you back, doctor. Lorca would’ve skinned us all if we’d actually lost you.”

“I’m sorry about Stanson.”

She shrugs. “Me too. What can you do. Sit down, doctor, and have some proper food.”

Hugh does, relishing in being able to get off his feet.

“So what happened to you?” Michael asks, kneeling down next to him.

“We thought we could maybe continue on to the monolith, in the hopes that Paul would be able to maybe work out a way to contact base camp with the technology there. We encountered two more wrecks, and after the second one it started raining awfully. We barely made it up to the monolith when we were practically drowned. We spent some… four, I think, days in there with the water level rising and thunder storming all around where we nearly starved because of course we ran out of food. When it stopped raining we decided to go back. Paul said he could figure out where to go if we would go by night, so he could determine our position relative to base camp with the stars, and… that’s what we’ve been doing.” He grins. “Oh, man, Michael, I never though - I thought you were a Klingon troop. I thought, um, it was over.”

She smiles back and throws an arm around him. “No can do. You’re coming home with us. None of this accidentally dying. We’re going back to base camp, we’ll win the war, we’ll all go home and have ice cream. That’s how it’s going to go.”

Hugh eats his nutri bar - sweet tasty sawdust held together by factory glue watered down with toilet water - and allows himself to be calm. For once things are actually looking up.

“Doc, if you have a moment, take a look at Cornell’s foot, will you?” Landry sits down as well. “He injured it. Not sure how, or how bad it is really, but now that you’re back, well.”

 

 

 

 

Hugh looks at the foot, improvises some splints so they can start moving, since it’s already morning. Very very luckily Landry has already been taking it slow because of Cornell, so they’ll take lots of breaks; otherwise Hugh wouldn’t really know how to keep up, with one night missing for him and Paul.

With one whole nutri bar in his stomach though it’s a lot easier to keep up. Of course - those things are designed to give your body exactly what it needs, down to the electrolytes and trace elements. You could live your entire life on a diet of those things, and you wouldn’t get a single deficiency, assuming you’re otherwise healthy. They just aren’t tasty.

Michael walks next to him, making friendly conversation about what they’ve been up to, what Hugh and Paul have been up to, but Hugh can very quickly feel himself drifting off because he’s getting pretty tired, so she leaves him be.

It’s really great to have more people around though, more more or less friendly faces, not having to worry about not knowing where they’re going.

Their first break is still pretty early in the morning, for a full hour, while Cornell is supposed to rest up. Hugh makes a mental note to immediately snatch the guy up and deposit him under a regen unit once they’re back at camp.

Hugh also ends up napping almost that whole hour until he’s shaken awake by Michael.

Then, the lunch break is also longer, almost two hours, both of which Hugh also spends sleeping until Michael shakes him awake once again. After that it’s increasingly hard to keep any sort of focus, and it’s probably only thanks to Paul and Michael that Hugh doesn’t fall over his own feet. Luckily they’re still walking in the forest with very gently sloping hills, so he doesn’t fall off a cliff at least.

He’s also unconscious within about ten seconds of taking off his boots and crawling into the sleeping bag.

 

 

 

 

The next day is much the same, except Hugh is ever so slightly more awake. Years of working shifts and then the war have forced his body to adapt to changing times as rapidly as possible. Sometimes he wonders whether there are some health detriments that come with that, both mental and physical, but it’s not like he has much of a choice.

Also, Paul has gotten remarkably silent again. Unsurprising, technically, since their talks while they were on their own were rather private and not exactly something Hugh would like to talk about in front of such a large group, especially seeing how he only barely knows most of them (and seeing how heonly barely likes any of them, too). It still comes as a surprise, of course. Hugh never looked the gift horse that was Paul’s chattiness into the mouth, so of course he’s surprised now. It’s understandable though.

He misses it.

That realisation comes around lunch, when he’s chewing his food and drinking some water and deep thoughts are happening in his head. Yes, he misses talking to Paul, the ease between them, the way it felt as though they were the only people left in the world.

 

 

 

 

He’s so lost in his thought that he doesn’t even hear the projectile fly, or the way it embeds itself just about half a meter from him.

“Take cover!” Michael yells moments before she slams into him, making him stumble and fall.

The projectile explodes.

Someone is returning fire while someone else is shouting while someone else is dragging Hugh, legs not working properly, while there’s more fire, streaks of reddish orange cutting through the air, with a boulder pressing into Hugh’s back and side and Paul on his other side, shielding him.

Things are happening very fast. Hugh watches in astonishment. There are Klingons coming. There’s hand to hand combat that looks a lot less artful than in movies. The Klingons get shot, mostly. People go down with punches. The grass is trampled. The air is filled with noise and screams and the sounds of weapons.

And then it’s quiet again.

Hugh takes a tiny quivering breath, unable to turn his eyes away.

One by one the humans are getting up again. The Klingons aren’t.

Landry is making hand movements that probably mean something.

People are doing things.

Something warm is running down Hugh’s leg.

“Clear!” Landry calls eventually.

Paul stops leaning on Hugh, sitting back on his haunches instead, fixing Hugh with a worried look. “Are you okay, Hugh?”

Hugh takes another very small breath.

One of the Klingons is still moving. One of the humans goes over to them. The Klingon stops moving.

“Hugh? Hey, look at me.” Paul turns his head to him, holding his chin. “Are you alright? Are you injured?”

Hugh’s calf hurts a little. Lateral lower leg, _muscli fibulares longus et brevis_ , all of which he learned, their innervation, their function, their places of origin and insertion. They’re getting warm. It kind of hurts.

“Oh no, you’re bleeding.” Paul’s eyes have dropped from Hugh’s face and he’s staring at Hugh’s leg too now. “Hey, Hugh, snap out of it, you need to take a look at this and treat it.”

It takes way too much energy to actually move his head, but that’s when the world goes from that weird disjointed quality back to normal and Hugh can feel the pain shooting up his leg and all the way into his spine.

“Ow,” he says, staring down in bewilderment.

His pants are ripped, slightly charred, and getting an interesting shade of red that Hugh knows to be fresh blood. His blood, to be exact. It’s not a lot by any means, but it’s a steady trickle, and he should bandage it.

“I need bandages,” he says, still feeling a little dreamy. “Um, and some… padding, of some sorts. First aid kit, nothing special.”

“Alright.” Paul squeezes his shoulder and gets up.

Hugh continues staring at his leg. Water. He should’v told Paul he needs water too, to wash out the wound. Even though the water isn’t sterile by any means, but it’ll be better than with patches of fabric and grass and whatever that projectile was still in it.

Of course Paul thought about the water himself.

Hugh cuts out the damaged part of his pant leg, rolls the rest up, dumps the whole bottle of water over it, winces slightly at the way that feels and bandages himself with swift, practised movements. Then he sets the roll of bandaging material aside and wonders how he should feel now. It’s painful, so much is true, especially with the added pressure of the bandage. It’s also a bit weird to see your own skin shaved aside. That’s not something that usually happens in his job.

Should he feel shock? Fear, maybe? Or should he just get up and walk away?

He could just walk away. Well. He probably shouldn’t, but technically those were just epifascial veins, so while sure, if he were to walk around and so forth, there would be quite some pressure on that, and it would make the wound bleed, but very little muscle tissue was damaged, so it’s kind of fine.

“Hey,” Paul says again, making him snap back to reality again. “Painkillers?”

He offers Hugh a row of blisters and another bottle of water. Hugh smiles to himself. Paul has learned so much. Sure, it’s not proper medicine, it’s whatever make-do emergency medicine they can manage here, but in those terms Paul has learned a lot.

“Thank you,” he answers, taking the tablets, quietly surprised at how calm he is. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Paul is watching him swallow one of the tablets carefully. “Hugh, are you alright? You, um, you got injured there. There was a firefight. A Klingon ambush.”

“I,” Hugh swallows, noticing his knees shake. “I’m - I wouldn’t say alright, but I’m okay. A bit…” He thinks around for the word. “Surprised, maybe. Um. I didn’t expect that.”

Paul’s hand settles on one of Hugh’s shaking knees. “None of us did.”

“You shielded me.”

“That’s my job.” Paul smiles. Then his expression turns grim and he shuffles aside to let Landry kneel down as well.

“What’s your status, Culber?”

“Um.” He’s really not used to be the patient. Unsurprisingly. “I’m okay. A bit of a - scratch, I think you might call it.”

“Are you good to walk?”

He clings on to his water bottle. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Alright.” She gets up and leaves.

Doctors make the worst patients. It’s true. He still wishes there was a doctor here. Other than him, of course. Someone who could take control, someone who’d let Hugh hand over control. He’s way out of his league here, feeling way too odd and way too scared, maybe, to get up and possibly take care of someone else, or just to look over everyone in the group.

His injured blood vessels will already have started decreasing their diameter to let as little blood as possible run out; maybe some blood will already have started clotting.

Of course it will. Primary hemostasis after what, two minutes? Provided he didn’t mess it up with bandaging the wound. And so far the bandage is still white.

Now only the meds will have to kick in.

 

 

 

 

Landry has two watches per unit assigned for the night. Paul holds Hugh for the night.

He still can’t fall asleep.

Paul does. It’s calming to listen to his shallow breathing, his heartbeat, his presence.

Hugh lies awake and thinks. It’s not even proper thinking where you’re trying to work out a problem - it’s diffuse, jumping from one thought to another. He thinks about their night in the wreck with the bed, about the sea monsters in that other place, about all the skeletons, about starving and feeling like they’ll drown in the monolith, about all the hours alone with Paul, about Paul’s crush, about the Klingons, about fishing Tyler out of that plane, about Lorca and what he might be planning, a whole maelstrom of thoughts that isn’t going anywhere, isn’t really anything happy, is doing nothing but sucking him deeper and deeper into thinking useless dark thoughts.

His wound is pulsating. Or however you call that weird thing when you can feel your heartbeat in a wound. It’s also hurting. Not terribly - something about how most of the superficial skin nerves are probably pretty… well, gone.

Hugh is also exhausted but still hyperawake, like something will jump out at him from the shadows, like he can see shapes and hear whispers. Other than the night watch talking, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all might be interested in the fact that i did indeed write their first kiss :3


	10. XXVIIb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

“I’m sorry,” Paul confesses the next morning after he dragged Hugh out of an unstable, restless sleep filled with hazy figures hunting him. “I should’ve protected you. I’m glad Michael did it and pushed you out of harm’s way, but that was my job. She could’ve gotten hurt, and you did get hurt. I’m,” He looks down on his hands and swallows. “I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry you’re injured and in pain now.”

Hugh is too confused, too unrested, too much in pain to think straight (not that that’s a feat he, as a gay man, has ever been capable of), so he just pulls Paul into a hug and rests his head on his shoulder. “You saved my life, probably.”

“You’re injured.”

“It’ll heal. Don’t worry.” Hugh leans into the embrace some more. As does Paul.

Twenty seconds into a hug and your body releases oxytocin or something? Hugh would like a lot of that, please.

“Will you be able to walk?” Paul asks.

“I’m fine. I’ll take some more pain medication, and I’ll be alright. People have survived with worse injuries.”

Paul sighs. “You shouldn’t have to walk. And neither should Cornell. We should take a break until you’re both healed.”

“Tell that to Landry.”

 

 

 

 

So they walk again. At first with clenched teeth on Hugh’s part, but once the meds kick in he feels better. Also Paul frequently checks in with him, and while that’s not exactly what they had when they were still alone, it’s still better than Paul’s thoughtful silence. The only thing he’s missing really badly is the odd moments of holding Paul’s hand though.

“We should come across another wreck later today,” Landry says without preamble, sidling up alongside him. “Will you be well enough to scavenge it with your android, or should we send someone else?”

Before Hugh can even formulate a response, Paul cuts in: “I’ll go with one of your men. Doctor Culber needs to rest his leg. I know he’ll disagree, but he needs rest if he’s not supposed to slow us down later. Or worse, get really ill.”

“I can do it!” Hugh protests. “I’m not that badly injured.”

“So you’re going to rest so you don’t get badly injured, then.”

“Paul -”

“It’s right, doc. You’re grounded and your android’s gonna go instead.” She leaves them alone after that.

Hugh turns to Paul. “Did she just call you an ’it’?”

Paul shrugs. “What about it? A lot of people do.”

Hugh swallows heavily. He didn’t know that. That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll tell them to not do that anymore. That’s awful!”

“No, don’t bother. Hugh, you need to be on good terms with all of them, especially her, so you’re on good terms with Lorca, so he’ll treat you alright. Please. I know you mean well, and I - I cannot begin to explain how happy you are that, um. That you find it awful too, that it’s not just me being presumptuous, that… I’m still - this might sound stilly, but every time you say my - the name I chose, that makes me feel so good. So - well, don’t bother with them. What you’re doing is already enough. Already… already more than I deserve, maybe.”

Hugh stops dead. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that. You deserve everything they deserve too, and then some. Fuck - Paul, you’re a lot more human than a lot of people I’ve met in my life. And I -” He exhales harshly, words mixing with angry tears and it ends with neither getting out. “I’m so sorry. And I’m so angry that - just - please don’t feel like you’re less than them. If anything, you’re better than them. Please, Paul.”

Paul ducks his head and stares at his feet for a short while. “I’ll try.”

“Good.”

 

 

 

 

Hugh is pretty glad he doesn’t have to go into that wreck, because by the time they arrive at it, his leg is pulsing with pain and the bandage is bled through, of course. He can barely walk properly anymore. So he just sits down on a bent support beam, puts his leg up and leans back against the hull, face scrunched up in pain.

He sips his water while he watches everyone put up the tents, light already fading. He’ll take another painkiller after he’s rested up for a little bit, and then he’ll probably have to bandage his wound again. Okay, maybe he was too hard on the injured soldiers, because this stuff is very painful, actually, and he doesn’t like it.

Someone comes over to stand next to him and Hugh blinks open an eye again. Then another when he realises it’s Michael.

“How bad is it?”

Hmm, he’s also not enjoying the patient’s role overall, with people asking how he is and being concerned for him. He should be able to just… function.

“I’m getting a new appreciation for all you guys, who just shrug this stuff off,” he answers, closing his eyes again.

Judging by the sounds, Michael sits down next to him. “But we don’t walk on our injuries. Or at least no further than to your medbay, where we immediately get pumped full of pain killers and get sat under a regen unit until we’re all better again. And none of us did that hell trip you and Paul were on before. Come on, take some painkillers, I’ll help you bandage your leg again and then you should maybe go to sleep.”

Hugh cracks open one eye again. “Since when can you stand the sight of other people’s blood?”

“I can’t. But you’re my friend and I want to help you, so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.”

 

 

 

 

Hugh watches the sun set slowly, watches the group set up camp, watches the trees’ glow, waiting for Paul to come back.

That odd feeling that he had ages and ages ago, or maybe just days ago, that Paul is betraying him somehow is coming up again, and seemingly for no reason this time. Paul didn’t lead him away from the group, he only insisted on coming to the monolith where… well, where all the things that happened there happened. With the… the portals.

Still feels weird to say that.

And then they’d made their way back, and through seriously insane luck they found the group again. What even are the odds of that? Couple thousand humans and a couple thousand Klingons on this whole planet that’s bigger than Earth and with absolutely zero infrastructure, and they’d found the group again. Which is unlikely, but not impossible.

Landry hadn’t seemed too surprised. And - well, what had Paul been up to when they rejoined with the group? Hugh had hugged Michael and talked to her, and then he was ushered to sit down and eat and look at Cornell’s foot, but where had Paul been? Where had Landry been?

Had Lorca not even said he wanted people to check out the monolith? It’s hard to remember, with everything else that’s been going on.

And what about the Sunbeam missions? Right now, Hugh is sitting on a wreck that bears the Sunbeam logo. Or part of it, at least. It’s a pretty ugly logo, but who’s he to judge? Anyways, Paul had reacted really aggressive about Sunbeam. And then the monolith thing happened with Michael and Tyler and suddenly Paul had shut up, and then they went and scavenged these wrecks and Paul had been fine. Sure, they hadn’t talked much about it, hadn’t mentioned the name, but shouldn’t it have set Paul off anyways? Instead he had been focussed on reaching the monolith. Only to be disappointed that there basically was nothing there. Bit of algae, bit of sand, that basin with the huge skeleton in it, a few empty display cases in a dark room filled with ramps.

And that portal.

And Paul had been talking about how he felt that this was his purpose. Without specifying what ’this’ was, of course. Because there had been nothing to do! Whatever that place is, it doesn’t have a purpose. And neither does that - the other place. Behind the portal.

Hugh squints against the setting sun and wishes he could squeeze his brain and make information appear.

Or maybe he’s just paranoid.

That’s when he spots Paul climbing out of the wreck, closely followed by whoever he took with him. He heads straight to Landry, who’s standing a bit closer to Hugh, working something out with the holo-map.

Hugh closes his eyes to a slit and leans his head back to pretend he’s sleeping.

The soldier - Wilson, maybe? - Is clearly not invited into this secret meeting, so he leaves.

“What’d you find?” Landry asks, voice faint but still audible enough to Hugh.

“First aid kits, pain medicine, bandages, stitching kits, lots of gloves, even sterile ones. There’s a lot still in the wreck. Wilson is bringing his stuff over to the supplies, and I’m going to do that too, after reporting to you, and with your permission, I’ll then go back and get everything else I can find.”

“Make sure to actually register what you got.”

“I will, commander.”

“Anything else?”

“I…” Paul is obviously hesitant to speak his mind.

“Out with it.”

“I didn’t get to ask, um, when Hu- when Doctor Culber and I rejoined the group and I um, I gave you the items.”

Hugh’s heart jumps in his chest. Items? What items?!

“What about them? They don’t concern you.”

“I just wanted to make sure that they’re the right ones. That, that our deal is still, um, on and all that.” Paul sounds really nervous by now, and if Hugh wasn’t so alert he’d actually feel sorry for him. Landry isn’t awful per se, she’s just pretty tough. And not the most android-friendly person ever, if he’s honest.

“That’s for the captain to decide.”

“Look, I did what you asked me to do!”

“Listen here. You’re a machine. I know you’re getting all those pretty little thoughts about playing some cute doctor games with Culber, but you’re a machine. Nothing more. You do your job until you’re deemed replaceable, then you get the hell out and go sit on a refuse dump until they stick you in a garbage compactor, same like if my toaster was acting up. If you get too cheeky, you get a VIP ticket to that garbage compactor. Just because you can talk and your average water cooker can’t doesn’t make you special. The captain gives the orders, I follow them, and I’m going to be dammed before I let you prance around here like you’re human. You follow orders just like everyone and everything else. You understand me?”

After a few heartbeats, Paul mutters an assent so quietly that Hugh doesn’t catch the exact words, even though the sentiment is clear.

“Good. Get out of my sight.”

Paul walks away.

Hugh’s heart is beating far too loudly in his ears and he hopes, he really hopes that he still looks calm from the outside. What the fuck had just happened?

So Paul _had_ been working for Landry and, by extension, Lorca all along. And he brought them something back? Like a little souvenir from the monolith souvenir shop? A funny hat in the shape of the monolith? Some of the sand? Maybe one of the skeletons is now missing teeth.

For a brief moment Hugh imagines Paul carrying a whole skull of one of these beasts back to Lorca and presenting it to him as a trophy, and he almost smiles before remembering again that this is very much not funny.

Paul went behind his back. Paul had an ulterior motive, Paul wasn’t honest with him, Paul was actually in league with Lorca.

Hugh settles his hands on his stomach to keep the dread in there and let it not consume him.

He does feel sick. Really, really badly.

Paul - he’d thought Paul was his friend! His confidante! His - his - assistant sounds wrong, but that’s also what Paul had been. Paul had been a lot of things. And now he went behind Hugh’s back.

Even though it’s not like Hugh explicitly said not to have any dealings with the captain. And it’s not Hugh’s place to make such demands. Paul is his own person, and if that’s the path he wants to follow… well.

It still kind of hurts. Hugh tries very hard to push it away, but yeah, even now he has to admit that he’s… disappointed.

He’s torn out of his thoughts when Landry starts giving orders or talking to the other soldiers or whatever, leaving her spot closer to Hugh. He should probably also… do something. Not hang around here and wallow. He could at least pop open his tent, crawl inside and nurse his wounded leg and hurt feelings.

He also really doesn’t want to get up because walking hurts.

“Um. H-Hugh?” That’s Paul.

Hugh startles properly awake, sitting up straighter and blinks at Paul. His stomach still gets all happy and fluttery when seeing him.

“Hi. Do you need something?”

Paul fidgets, looking down on his feet. “I… Hugh, um, I have to talk to you. Could we, um, there’s - this wreck also has some chocolate, uh, so, um.” He’s blushing. “We could maybe go in there. Where we’re not disturbed.”

Hugh’s brain says a very hard no. His heart says a very excited yes. His brain concedes to a yes as well, so he can confront Paul.

“Sure,” is what he actually says.

Paul helps him up. Hugh doesn’t have the heart to shove his hands away, and he does need Paul’s support to keep some weight off his injured leg.

This gaping hole in the wreck leads directly into a corridor, which is barely at an angle at all, and they don’t have to walk far to make it into some sort of mess hall.

Hugh sits down on the proffered chair with a sigh.

“You should put your leg up, maybe.” Paul puts another chair upright, helping Hugh lift his injured leg on it. “Um, just give me a moment, the chocolate is in one of the cupboards back there.”

Hugh nods and closes his eyes again while Paul is rifling around back there.

“There you go,” he says eventually, and Hugh opens his eyes again.

“Ooh, muffins!” Yeah, that should be his primary worry right now.

He still stuffs his face for a bit. Fine, he’s hungry, his tastebuds are hungry for, well, taste, and he likes muffins. Paul also takes one, but he’s picking on it rather than eating it.

“I need to ask you something,” he bursts out. Finally. Also suddenly.

“Sure.”

“Um. So… well, you probably, you know Commander Landry doesn’t like me. And doesn’t see me as, um, as a person. But you’ve said you do. And so…” Paul sighs heavily, falling in on himself, staring at the muffin in his lap. “So remember how I told you about my crush? And… about all the feelings that come with liking him, and how good he makes me feel and all that. And remember how you told me I should maybe tell him? To… um, to take my chance?”

“I do.” But why do they have to be here for Paul to talk about that? Why does Paul have to talk about that generally? Because… ugh, feelings are hard. Hugh still loves him. He also knows Paul went behind his back and is teaming up with Lorca. That’s bad. “So why am I here?”

“Because… the man I love is you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3


	11. XXVIIIa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna silently and wordlessly hand this in bc i'm very aware i left you guys hanging for two weeks...... :$

Hugh laughs a little. “Uh, okay.”

“I was serious.” Paul’s eyes are piercing.

“No, you’re not.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Because… you’re not - you’re not supposed to, um.” Hugh swallows down a whole lot of ugly feelings. “You’re not supposed to like me. I’m not - you deserve someone who’s good for you. Good to you. Who’s just, um. Better, overall. Not me, you know. I’m very flattered, but, yeah, you should look for someone who’s - who’ll treat you right.”

“Guess why I’m here.” Paul sets the mutilated muffin aside. “I love you, Hugh. I do. I, well, I don’t have much to give, in that aspect, but I’m willing to, um. Lay all my love on you, you know?”

Hugh’s brain whirrs frantically before he recognises the reference. “ABBA? Really?”

Paul ducks his head and smiles. “Maybe. Hugh, I… I’m serious. Just tell me if you would rather - well, I do know you have a crush of your own. Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

“It’s you,” Hugh says. “You’re the crush. Fuck, Paul.”

Paul stares.

Then he laughs.

Hugh can’t help but smile, too. Paul likes him. Fuck, they’re idiots. But Paul likes him. Paul - oh god, Paul loves him. Paul likes him back. Oh, wow.

His stomach is in very warm, very happy knots, and he just watches Paul until he stops snickering. God, he could do this forever. Just look at him being happy. And now he just might get to do it.

“We’re two real idiots, aren’t we?”

“Maybe,” Hugh says. “I never thought - I didn’t - I thought it was one of the soldiers, you know, someone who was on night shift, who you’d see when I was asleep, and there I was, talking about you to you, not knowing I could just - you know, with a little bit more honesty we wouldn’t have had to wait so long.”

Paul’s smile turns endlessly soft. “Sometimes things taste sweeter the longer you’ve had to wait for them.” His eyes flicker to Hugh’s lips.

Oh. Kissing. Yeah, that’s a thing.

“You know, sometimes people taste sweeter when they had sweets earlier,” he teases, watching Paul’s smile turn bright again.

Paul folds his hands in his lap, so obviously trying not to appear overeager. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything, obviously. And - you need to watch your leg. You’re injured.”

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I first laid eyes on you, Paul.”

“Oh. Well, that um, that takes care of that.”

He’s nervous, Hugh realises. It’s not just anticipation or eagerness, it’s also a great deal of nervosity.

“Paul? Are you worried I won’t like to kiss you because you don’t have any experience?”

“No! Who said that!”

“I mean, you did. But… don’t worry about it.”

“Right.” Paul is fidgeting again, watching Hugh with big eyes.

“Alright, you idiot.” Hugh gets his leg off the chair and braces himself on the table, getting up. Before Paul can react, Hugh grabs him by his lapels and pulls him up. “Kiss me already.”

Paul is flushing and so adorable and so awkward. “I - I don’t even - what do I even do with my hands? Hugh, I don’t know -”

“Just…” Hugh cups his face properly, for the first time, stepping in as close as he dares. One day he’ll hold Paul so closely they won’t know where one of them ends and the other one begins. But not for Paul’s first kiss. He wets his lips, flicking his eyes downwards to see Paul biting his bottom lip. “Just relax, okay? Go along with it.”

Paul inhales shakily. Nods.

Hugh closes his eyes and moves in, gently, carefully. Paul’s lips are as soft as he’d expected, but Paul is far more active than he’d imagined, pressing back into the kiss, arms coming up to wrap around Hugh. Hugh takes another small step in as well. He can smell Paul, feel his warmth, how good he is to hold. How fast his heart beats.

Paul makes a small moan and whatever restraint Hugh had been holding on to for whichever reason vanishes. He sucks Paul’s bottom lip between his, biting almost playfully before sliding his tongue over it, marvelling at the second small sound Paul makes, the way he almost falls into Hugh’s hold. The way he curiously opens his lips and touches his tongue to Hugh’s.

Hugh hums, finally letting Paul’s lower lip free to seek out his tongue again, coaxing his lips open further, tilting his jaw because he wants more, more, more of Paul who’s making his world spin and dance around him.

They split, possibly because Hugh needs oxygen.

Paul bumps their foreheads together, not letting go of Hugh, eyes shining brightly.

“We’re going to do that again, right?”

Hugh laughs into their shared space, shifting to take weight off his injured leg. “As often as you want.” He presses a gentle kiss again the corner of Paul’s mouth, feeling Paul smile.

“I see why humans do this as a, ah, recreational activity.”

“It’s pretty nice, yeah.” Hugh noses along the side of Paul’s nose until he can kiss him on the forehead, too. “Mhm. Oh, wow. Paul, I… I never thought something like this would happen. That you would like me back. That I’d hold you in my arms and that you’d feel so _good_.”

“Me neither. I was really scared to tell you about it, too. I thought - well, as long as I keep it to myself, it’s a Schrödinger’s kind of love. You love me and you don’t love me at the same time. Pretty stupid.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I was just as stupid. Come here.” Hugh presses closer again, tongue slipping out to run along the seam of Paul’s lip before it’s met by Paul’s own.

 

 

 

 

They spend a good while in the wreck, just exchanging soft kisses. When it becomes obvious that Hugh’s leg is bothering him a lot, Paul manhandles him up on the table Hugh had been sitting at within a moment, then comes to stand between his thighs. It makes Hugh taller than Paul and somehow that makes Paul kiss him a little more insistently, makes Hugh kiss back a little more insistently and his heart rate stays comfortably at a pretty high level.

Eventually though, Paul makes an argument for getting back outside - namely food and sleep - and as much as Hugh would love to just make out with Paul until the planet stops running its laps around the sun, he also likes food and sleep. He also really needs to rest his leg.

This time it’s different to curl up with Paul for sleeping. One, he’s giving Hugh a warm, soft, and thoroughly happy smile Hugh has never seen on him before, and two, his lips are still tingling and his knees are still weak and he can’t wait to have Paul in his arms again.

They share even softer, smaller kisses while the camp gets ready for bed, sometimes barely putting together their lips.

Eventually, Hugh falls asleep on Paul’s chest again.

Things are just right in the world.

 

 

 

 

“What do I call you?” Paul’s voice is hushed.

Hugh is comfortably nuzzled into the Paul’s arms, and he’s very warm and kind of sleepy and for some reason his brain decided to be awake. It’s fine though, he does like spending time with Paul after all.

“How about ’Hugh’?” he teases.

“No, I mean… you know, honey or baby or… that stuff. Pet names, I think they’re called.”

Something soft and vulnerable and pretty opens in Hugh’s heart. Like the really tiny green leaves on a plant after a hard winter, small and bright and strong.

“You can call me whatever you’d like. I love pet names.”

“Honey, maybe, then. It’s curious - as far as I know it’s a spread you would put on bread? So I wouldn’t exactly consider it cute, but… it fits you, somehow. It’s golden, just like you.”

“I’m - what?” Hugh laughs. “I’m not golden.”

“Well, no. Your skin is brown and your hair is black and your eyes are, I think, the colour of chocolate. That’s all very - it’s very attractive. But you’re golden on the inside. Like the sun on an early morning. Just… golden. You know, like - like my own sunrise. I’m still counting them, after all.”

“The - the sunrises?”

“Yes. Remember the drive in the truck over to Isthmus, when I had only been there for a few hours and days, and Tilly said I need to find something to make life worth living? Like seeing a hundred sunrises? I’ve seen fifty-one so far, fifty-two this morning. And… they certainly do make life very worth living. But… you’re worth thousands, millions of sunrises. That’s - you are - you’re just like the rising sun. And I want to look at you and cherish every moment I have with you. You’re just as beautiful, just as strong, just as - you know, you bring hope and joy and - and life, quite literally even. You’re everything I could wish for and more than I could ever dare hope for, but… here you are, you know? Just like a sunrise.”

Tears are making Hugh choke, too many emotions for him to even know what to say, what to do but press his face into the side of Paul’s neck and let himself cry softly.

Paul holds him, of course. “You don’t have to cry. And you don’t have to, to feel like you need to say something back or… anything like that. I understand. I know. It’s alright.”

Hugh kisses him, trying to pour his feelings into that instead. Going by the first surprised, then very, very happy sounds Paul makes, he succeeds at least somewhat.

 

 

 

 

There’s nothing different about today’s walk. Paul is mostly walking next to Hugh, ever so often giving him a blinding smile. They can’t really duck away and kiss for a few heartbeats, unfortunately, but that doesn’t stop Hugh from blowing him a kiss on occasion.

After lunch they’re walking down a sloping path from a cliff to a beach, and Paul is way ahead of the group to check out the beach. That’s when Michael sees her chance and shows up next to Hugh lightning-quick.

“So you seem awfully chipper today,” she comments, smile hiding in the corner of her lips.

Hugh tries very hard to avoid a soft sigh and a starstruck look, but he probably fails rather spectacularly. “You were right,” he says. “He loves me too.”

“Aw, hey.” She bumps into Hugh’s shoulder and smiles. “I’m happy for you.”

“I really like kissing him.” This time, Hugh definitely can’t avoid sounding starstruck.

“Maybe keep all the details to yourself, so you don’t make me miss my girlfriend too much.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“I also don’t want to know how long his tongue is, or how far it or other things go down your throat. Keep all that to yourself.”

“How about long winding explanations on how much I want to hold his hand right now, and cuddle him, and be held by him, and smell him and… all those things? Can I make those?”

“Sure. I charge one muffin per minute of long winded gay explanations.”

Hugh snickers. “So you know about the muffins.”

“Oh, Paul gave me a share. Possibly to pay me off so I don’t tell you about how shyly he told me how beautiful he thinks you are and how much he enjoyed kissing you.”

“So you’re just going to go behind his back and tell me all that anyways?”

“In this case, yes.”

Hugh just smiles. Michael leaves him be again, preferring to walk alone, and once she’s gone he finally heaves that heavy exhale that’s been weighing on him ever since he joked Michael was going behind Paul’s back.

Because Paul had confessed his love to him, and had kissed him and all that, and he had also done… something.

Fuck, is it even right for Hugh to be angry? But he feels kind of… used, and like Paul doesn’t trust him, but he also loves Paul.

Why didn’t Paul tell him? All the time they had together on their little stint to the monolith, all the opportunities he had, all the conversations they had.

Hugh’s boot sink into the deep sand on the beach and he almost stumbles, forcing him to look up. His eyes catch Paul standing in the surf. It’s after noon, but still very bright, and Paul is so pretty in the light that Hugh’s heart clenches. He doesn’t want for Paul to not - to be on the other side. The bad side. If you can call Lorca that. He wants to win the war, like they all do, he just doesn’t exactly use ethical methods. Would that change the outcome though? If two different ways led to the exact same goal… would that still make Lorca’s methods unethical?

Hugh shakes his head and reaches for his bottle of water. Some things are too complicated to think about.

Instead, he looks at Paul and wonders what a beach picnic with him would be like. What kind of swim wear he’d wear. Whether he’d need sunglasses. Whether he’d like ice cream, and what flavour he’d prefer, and how he’d taste afterwards.

One day he’ll take Paul to one of the nicer beaches in the San Francisco area, and they’ll do exactly that.

Hugh takes that imagined memory and very happily tucks it right underneath his heart, where all the really good thoughts go, to be taken out again when he needs them.

 

 

 

 

Once they’ve properly rounded the cliff, the landscape changes dramatically. They stop for a short break and to admire whatever it is nature built here.

“They’re like mushroom trees,” Paul comments, sidling up next to Hugh. “Only partially out of the water, and it looks like whatever mechanism they’re using to produce nutrients, it’s different if the… leaf, for lack of a better word, is in water or out of it. And these trees are old. It’s amazing.”

Michael even takes off her boots and wades into the water with a scanner. “They’re literally breathing!” she calls back, excitement bright in her voice. “They’re pulling in air, and putting it out differently, with everything but the O2 gone. They’re more effective than any plant on Earth. It’s amazing.”

Paul gets into the water as well, beginning to excitedly talk about botany with Michael. Hugh watches fondly. Maybe, despite the war, things can be okay. And while they’re here, it’s more than easy to forget that there is a war going on.

Hugh takes off his boots, tosses his jacket down on his backpack together with his socks and sticks his toes into the sand, feeling the texture, hot and grainy, cooler underneath. He sits down, checks on his wound again, then starts on some stretches for his shoulders and back. A cocktail wouldn’t be bad now, something slightly indecent, spicy and exotic. And most importantly cold. A sunshade to hide out under. And Ice cream. Definitely ice cream.

 

 

 

 

They leave sooner than any of them really want to, but it’s obvious that Landry wants to reach a specific point on the map before nightfall. And she probably wants to leave the beach too, because it’s spreading out now, making them way too visible with absolutely no cover in sight. That is an uncomfortable feeling indeed, because not too long ago they did meet Klingons. Or engage? Is that what you said when you find an enemy out in the wilds? Whatever. But yeah, that had happened; Hugh still feels the effects of that every time he puts weight on his leg. And it means that there are probably Klingon facilities, camps, all those things nearby.And that in turn means that where there’s currently one hole in Hugh’s leg, there would be a few more to join it soon. Or elsewhere.

It’s not something Hugh looks forward to.

The beach tapers off into an overall more rocky terrain, but with big boulders instead of difficult small spikes and walls to climb. All-round vision is bad, obviously, and it’s mostly shaded and thus much more cold than the beach, and due to the relatively narrow pathway they walk in double or single file, Hugh trotting just a few steps behind Paul. It gives him opportunity to think more. Not that he’s been lacking in time for that, but he also has a lot to think about.

He mostly ends up thinking about kissing Paul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi uh... i don't know whether anyone is still reading this. but... i'm considering not updating the story anymore. i mean, i know how it ends already, right? and... nobody else seems to particularly care anymore. i thought halving the chapters would work, but if it did anything, it just made less people read. at the moment, i feel like i'm chucking chapters into the void.  
> idk guys, i just... i tried, i honestly tried to make a story worth your time and worth reading, but whenever there was a slightly larger readership, immediately after, people left in droves. i honestly don't know what i'm doing wrong, but i really can't write a story that nobody cares about anymore. because again - for me, the story is done. i know the entire plot. i know where each character ends up.  
> writing this was fun, it really was, but you know that feeling when you tell someone very excitedly about a thing of yours and they're like "ok." and nothing more? that's what it feels like for me at the moment. i love this story dearly, but every time i open the document and try to write i can't put down anything that feels good, because i don't think anyone cares. because it's not giving me anything anymore.  
> i'm just not gonna burn myself out on a story nobody cares about anymore. i don't want to beg for comments because i believe they should be freely given, but apparently nobody has anything to say about the story anymore, so here we are.  
> so... i guess i'm just going to leave this on paul and hugh finally having gotten together and things looking okay for them for once, and i'm not gonna update for a while. maybe forever.


End file.
